Notre Dame's 2026 Offensive Line Has the Makings of Joe Rudolph's Best Unit Yet

Marcus Freeman's vision for Notre Dame football has always started in the same place. Before the skill positions, before the quarterback, before the coordinators and the scheme and the recruiting rankings — it starts in the trenches. It starts with the offensive line setting a physical tone that makes everything else the Fighting Irish want to do on offense not just possible but inevitable.

That vision has been building toward something in South Bend. The recruiting has been elite. The talent in the room has been undeniable. And now, entering 2026, the pieces are finally aligned in a way that makes the question not whether Notre Dame's offensive line can be great — but whether this specific group, with this specific configuration, in this specific season, can be the best offensive line Joe Rudolph has assembled since arriving at Notre Dame in 2023.

The answer depends significantly on two players — Will Black and Guerby Lambert, a pair of bookend tackles with tremendous upside whose development in 2026 could define not just this season but the entire trajectory of Rudolph's Notre Dame tenure. If Black and Lambert fulfill the expectations that their physical profiles and recruiting pedigrees have always suggested were coming, this offensive line has the talent, the experience and the positional construction to be a genuinely dominant unit — the kind that powers a rushing attack, protects an elite quarterback and gives an offensive coordinator with Mike Denbrock's résumé everything he needs to operate at the highest level.

Everything starts up front. In 2026, Notre Dame's offensive line has the chance to prove that the vision and the reality are finally the same thing.

Experience

The foundation of Notre Dame's 2026 offensive line case is a combination that championship units are built on — experienced interior players providing stability and continuity alongside new starting tackles with the kind of upside that changes what a unit can become at its ceiling.

Anthonie Knapp returns with two years of starting experience, now settled into the left guard position where his power, anchor and starting-caliber development project most powerfully. Ashton Craig — healthy and back from the injury that kept him out of spring practice — anchors the unit at center, the position most responsible for the communication and cohesion that separates good offensive lines from great ones. Sullivan Absher brings redshirt junior experience and genuine competitive hunger to right guard, a player who has waited for exactly this starting opportunity and arrives with the kind of chip-on-the-shoulder energy that produces the best seasons of college careers.

The experienced interior trio of Knapp, Craig and Absher gives Notre Dame's offensive line a proven, battle-tested core that first-year starting tackles can build around rather than carry. That structural advantage is enormous — because it means Black and Lambert do not have to be immediately dominant in order for the unit to function at a high level. They need to develop, grow and improve as the season progresses while the interior handles the communication load and sets the physical tone that the entire unit runs through.

That is the exact formula that produces breakthrough offensive line seasons — proven interior stability giving young, high-ceiling tackles the space to develop without the unit's effectiveness depending entirely on their immediate mastery of the position.

starting LT Will Black

The most consequential individual decision in Notre Dame's 2026 offensive line construction is Will Black's installation as the starting left tackle — and everything about Black's physical profile suggests it is exactly the right decision at exactly the right time.

Black arrived at Notre Dame as a five-star recruit whose combination of length, athleticism and raw pass protection tools projected to the blindside tackle position from the moment he stepped on campus. The left tackle spot is where his ceiling is highest, where his physical tools are most naturally expressed and where his development under Rudolph's coaching has always been pointed. Putting him there in 2026 — committing to the position, committing to the growing pains that come with first-year starting experience and committing to the long-term development arc that makes the short-term challenges worthwhile — is the kind of coaching conviction that separates programs building for championships from programs managing for comfort.

The growing pains will come. First-year starting left tackles in the Power Four face a learning curve against elite edge rushers that even the most talented players cannot fully avoid. Black will have moments in 2026 where that curve is visible — moments where an elite pass rusher wins a rep, where a coverage sack happens because the protection broke down outside and where the raw tools have not yet been fully refined into finished technique.

But the ceiling at the end of that developmental process is what makes every one of those moments worth the investment. A Will Black who has navigated a full season of left tackle starting experience against Power Four competition — processing different pass rush moves, learning to handle speed-to-power combinations and building the confidence that only comes from sustained starting-level repetitions — is the kind of blindside tackle that makes Notre Dame's offensive line genuinely elite for two or three more years beyond 2026.

The investment begins now. The return on that investment will define what Notre Dame's offensive line becomes.

Starting Rt Guerby Lambert

If Black's story in 2026 is about a talented young player stepping into the most demanding position on the offensive line for the first time, Lambert's story is about a proven, elite-recruited player finally getting to play where his ceiling has always been highest.

Lambert is a five-star recruit who arrived at Notre Dame with the physical tools — the length, the athleticism, the power and the frame — of an elite college right tackle. The right tackle position is where Lambert's profile projects most naturally, and 2026 represents the first time in his Notre Dame career that he steps into that role as the full-time, unambiguous starting right tackle without positional questions complicating his preparation or his identity within the unit.

That clarity matters more than it might initially appear. A five-star tackle who knows exactly where he is playing, who his running mate is at right guard and what his specific assignments and responsibilities are within the unit's blocking scheme is a significantly more effective player than one navigating positional uncertainty on top of the normal competitive demands of Power Four starting experience. Lambert enters 2026 with that clarity for the first time — and the results of a full season at right tackle in his natural position could be exactly what his recruiting profile always suggested was coming.

Together, Black on the left and Lambert on the right give Notre Dame something the offensive line has not had since Joe Alt and Blake Fisher anchored the 2023 unit — a pair of bookend tackles whose individual ceilings, if realized, make the entire offensive line a different and more dangerous entity than the sum of its experienced interior parts.

Alt and Fisher are starting in the NFL right now. The standard has been set. Black and Lambert have the talent to approach it. Whether they do in 2026 is the central question of Joe Rudolph's defining season.

Fueling the Rush — Two Seasons of Production That Demand Protection

The case for Notre Dame's offensive line dominance in 2026 is not built on projection alone. It is built on a foundation of sustained rushing production over the past two seasons that reflects a ground game operating at a high level even when the offensive line's performance has been inconsistent — and that should produce even more explosive results when the line reaches the potential that the 2026 configuration makes possible.

Over the past two seasons, Notre Dame has established itself as one of the most consistent rushing offenses in the country, grounding its attack in a zone-blocking scheme that rewards intelligence, footwork and the ability to move defenders off the line of scrimmage. The production has been there even through the injury disruptions and positional uncertainty that have complicated Rudolph's previous two seasons — which means the floor of what this rushing attack can do is already established at a high level.

Now pair that established rushing foundation with the most positionally sound offensive line configuration Rudolph has built since 2023 — and add the most dynamic running back room Notre Dame has had in recent memory.

Aneyas Williams enters 2026 as the featured back in a backfield that has been reloaded with genuine talent after the departure of Jeremiyah Love to the NFL. Williams brings a quickness, burst and space-creation ability that makes him a natural fit for the zone-blocking concepts Notre Dame runs — a runner who understands how to set up blocks, identify cutback lanes and accelerate through holes before defenders can close them. His ability to threaten defenses horizontally as well as vertically gives the ground game a dimension that forces defensive coordinators to honor the perimeter before crashing the interior — creating the kind of pre-snap conflict that makes Notre Dame's inside zone and power concepts more effective than they would be against a purely downhill running threat.

The offensive line's job is to create the environment where Williams's natural abilities can be fully expressed. With Black and Lambert protecting the edges, Knapp and Absher controlling the interior gaps and Craig directing the unit's communication from the center position, the blocking structure that Williams runs behind in 2026 has the potential to be the most effective the Irish have fielded in years.

When an offensive line dominates up front and a dynamic back like Williams is running behind it, rushing attacks do not just produce yards — they produce explosive plays, favorable down-and-distance situations and the kind of physical momentum that changes the entire complexion of a football game. Notre Dame's rushing attack has the ingredients for exactly that kind of production in 2026.

Protecting CJ Carr — The Most Important Assignment on the Roster

As important as the ground game is to Notre Dame's offensive identity, the offensive line's most critical assignment in 2026 is the one that directly determines whether the Irish passing offense reaches its enormous potential — protecting CJ Carr.

Carr enters his second season as Notre Dame's starter with the full benefit of a year of starting experience behind him, a deepened understanding of the offense and the weapons around him upgraded on every level. The wide receiver room is better. The tight end group is more experienced. The running back room gives him a genuine dual-threat dimension to work with in the passing game. The continuity of returning offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock and the same system Carr operated in throughout 2025 gives him a pre-snap processing advantage that second-year starters with returning coordinators enjoy in ways that are difficult to quantify but impossible to miss in the way they play.

But none of those advantages mean anything if Carr is running for his life on every passing down. The difference between a good quarterback and a great quarterback — between a solid season and a Heisman Trophy season — is almost always a function of how much time the offensive line gives him to go through progressions, identify coverage rotations and deliver the football to the right place with the timing and accuracy that his skill set demands.

Clean pockets do not just protect quarterbacks. They elevate them. When a quarterback can step into his throws, trust that his blindside is protected and operate through his full progression without the pressure of an unblocked defender bearing down on him, the entire passing game functions at a higher level. Routes develop more fully. Timing throws hit their windows. Check-downs become available when the primary read is covered. The entire mental processing load that second-year quarterbacks are still refining becomes more manageable when the physical environment the offensive line creates allows that processing to happen without the distortion of pressure.

Black and Lambert protecting Carr's edges in 2026 — if they perform at the level their talent suggests they can — give Notre Dame's quarterback an environment where his Heisman candidacy can develop naturally and fully. That is the assignment. Everything else the offensive line accomplishes in 2026 runs through whether they can consistently give CJ Carr the clean pocket he needs to maximize the talent surrounding him.

Mike Denbrock's Blueprint — Why Second-Year Quarterbacks Thrive Under His System

The offensive line's assignment in 2026 does not exist in isolation — it exists within the context of an offensive system designed by coordinator Mike Denbrock whose track record with second-year starting quarterbacks is one of the most compelling and relevant data points in Notre Dame's 2026 offensive preview.

Denbrock's résumé with second-year quarterbacks traces directly to the most celebrated quarterback performance in recent college football history. At LSU in 2023, Denbrock was the offensive coordinator for Jayden Daniels's Heisman Trophy season — a campaign in which Daniels, operating in his second year within a system that had been built around his strengths, produced one of the most statistically dominant quarterback performances the sport has ever seen. Daniels threw for 3,812 yards and 40 touchdowns while rushing for 1,134 yards and 10 more scores — numbers that earned him the Heisman Trophy and announced him as the most complete offensive player in college football.

The pattern that produced Daniels's Heisman season is directly applicable to what Carr and Notre Dame are building toward in 2026. A quarterback who has a full season of starting experience in the system. An offensive coordinator who has had a full offseason to study that quarterback's strengths, identify the plays and concepts that maximize his skill set and build a game plan philosophy that puts him in positions to succeed. A supporting cast that is upgraded from the previous season. And an offensive line assignment that is clearer, more positionally sound and more capable of providing protection than the one that existed in the quarterback's first year as a starter.

Denbrock has done this before. He has taken a second-year starting quarterback, built a system around his specific strengths and produced the kind of Heisman-caliber performance that changes careers. The offensive line's role in that process — keeping Carr clean, controlling the line of scrimmage in the run game and giving Denbrock's system the physical foundation it needs to operate at its ceiling — is the most direct and consequential contribution the unit can make to Notre Dame's 2026 championship aspirations.

If the offensive line delivers, Denbrock has everything he needs. If Denbrock has everything he needs, Carr has everything he needs. And if Carr has everything he needs — with the receiver room, the running back room and the system surrounding him in 2026 — the ceiling of what Notre Dame's offense can produce is genuinely limitless.

The Best Offensive Line of the Rudolph Era?

Stack all of it together — the experienced interior anchored by Knapp, Craig and Absher, the bookend tackle upside of Black and Lambert, the rushing production foundation that the past two seasons have established, the dynamic running back room led by Williams and the Denbrock-Carr connection that mirrors the blueprint that produced a Heisman Trophy at LSU — and the case for Notre Dame's 2026 offensive line being the best unit Rudolph has assembled at Notre Dame becomes genuinely compelling.

The standard was set in 2023 when Alt and Fisher gave Notre Dame two future NFL starters at the bookend positions. That unit is the measuring stick. Whether the 2026 group can approach or exceed that standard depends on Black and Lambert fulfilling the expectations their talent demands and the experienced interior delivering the consistency and physicality that championship offensive lines produce week after week.

The ingredients are there. The configuration is right. The assignment is clear. The supporting cast surrounding the offensive line — from Carr to Williams to the upgraded receiver room — gives the unit's performance a direct and immediate impact on Notre Dame's national championship aspirations.

This is Joe Rudolph's defining season. And for the first time in his Notre Dame tenure, he has the right players in the right places to make the definition one that every Fighting Irish fan will be proud of when the 2026 season is complete.

Will Black and Guerby Lambert. Protect the edge. Control the line of scrimmage. Fulfill the potential. Give CJ Carr the time to be great.

Do those things — and this offensive line does not just have the chance to be the best unit of the Rudolph era at Notre Dame.

It has the chance to be something that Notre Dame fans remember for a very long time.

Notre Dame's Most Painful and Embarrassing Losses-fan’s perspective

From gut-punch defeats to head-scratching upsets, these are the losses Irish fans can never forget

Every Notre Dame fan carries a mental list. The losses that still sting when you think about them too long, the ones that changed the trajectory of a season — or a program — and the ones so unexpected they still feel like a fever dream years later. The Lucky Lefty Podcast recently opened that wound for their audience, and the responses painted a vivid picture of decades of Irish heartbreak.

The conversation surfaced losses across multiple eras, each carrying its own specific flavor of pain.

The Embarrassments

Northern Illinois in 2012 sits near the top of almost every fan's embarrassment list — and for good reason. Notre Dame was riding the wave of an undefeated run toward a national championship appearance, and the NIU loss came at the worst possible time for the program's credibility. As one listener put it, every squirrel gets a nut eventually, but this particular nut cost the Irish dearly in terms of national perception.

The Stanford loss under Marcus Freeman's early tenure carries a different kind of embarrassment — not just because of the defeat itself but because of the way it ended. David Shaw, coaching what turned out to be one of his final games, walked off the field with a smirk that said everything. A program that had been terrible that year had just handed Freeman one of the most stinging early losses of his tenure, and Shaw departed without so much as a handshake — walking slowly off the field as if he wanted every Notre Dame fan to absorb the moment fully. You can't fight the bully when he moves to another city. That slow walk became the enduring image of that afternoon.

The Michigan State fake field goal belongs in its own category entirely. Notre Dame's defense had every reason to expect it — the Spartans' kicker had missed two attempts from distance on the night, and the situation screamed fake. And yet when Michigan State ran it, the Irish fell for it completely. The image of Notre Dame defenders' faces in that moment — the sudden realization of what had just happened — captured something painfully familiar about Irish football in certain eras.

The Painful Ones

The 2014 Florida State game occupies a special place of pain for Notre Dame fans because of what it represented beyond the loss itself. The Seminoles were coming off a national championship, riding an unbeaten streak, and playing at home with full momentum. Notre Dame had the talent and the moment to make a genuine statement — and a controversial pass interference call late in the game swung the outcome. The what-if of that game lingers because the trajectory of Brian Kelly's program could have bent permanently in Notre Dame's favor with a victory. Instead, a fork in the road sent the program in a different direction.

The 2023 Ohio State loss — with ten men on the field — makes the embarrassing list for reasons that need no elaboration. Execution errors at the most basic level, on the biggest stage, against the most visible opponent. That one hurt in a way that felt institutional rather than situational.

The Northwestern Problem

Perhaps the most revealing discussion centered on a Northwestern loss that podcast co-host Malik Zaire experienced firsthand as a Notre Dame player. The pain wasn't simply that Notre Dame lost — it was how Northwestern played in that game. The Wildcats were dropping touchdowns, making plays that had no business happening against a Notre Dame roster with significantly superior talent. Trevor Siemian was throwing bombs. The Irish were getting beaten by a team that, as Zaire noted, probably could have won by more if they had simply caught every ball thrown their way. Losing to a team that wasn't at full capacity is its own particular brand of humiliating.

The Consistent Thread

What connects every loss on this list is not talent disparity — it is execution, circumstance and the painful randomness of college football applied to a program that carries enormous expectations into every single game it plays. Notre Dame fans don't just want wins. They want wins that match the standard the program sets for itself, and every loss on this list fell short of that standard in its own specific and memorable way.

The good news, as one podcast host noted, is that genuinely embarrassing losses — the kind where Notre Dame had no business competing — have been remarkably rare over the past 15 years. The 2012 Alabama national championship game is the only contest in that span where the outcome felt completely inevitable from the opening drive. Everything else has been competitive, consequential and winnable.

That is the standard Marcus Freeman is now carrying forward — and the 2026 season represents his best opportunity yet to ensure the painful losses remain in the past where they belong.

ESPN's College Football Future Power Rankings Have Notre Dame at the Top

When ESPN set out to rank all 68 Power Four programs in their future power rankings — evaluating quarterback situations, trench outlooks, roster management, star power and coaching staff quality with the kind of comprehensive rigor that separates serious analytical work from preseason speculation — the Fighting Irish came out on top.

Not second. Not in a group of three or four teams separated by fractions of evaluation points. First. Unambiguously, convincingly and with justification that holds up to scrutiny from every angle the evaluation touched.

This is not a sentimental ranking built on Notre Dame's brand, its history or the weight of its tradition. ESPN looked at what is actually on the field, what is being built in the recruiting pipeline, how the roster is being managed and who is coaching the program — and concluded that no program in the country is better positioned for sustained elite performance than Marcus Freeman's Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

The case begins with a quarterback whose growth and efficiency have already made him one of the most decorated signal callers in Notre Dame history. It runs through an offensive line that is finally deploying its elite talent in the right positions. It extends through a running back room with genuine dimension and a wide receiver group upgraded on every level. And it culminates in a defense that returns significant proven production while adding transfer portal talent to a revamped defensive staff that made the transition look seamless during spring practice.

Stack all of it together and the No. 1 ranking does not just make sense. It is the only honest conclusion.

CJ Carr — Growth, Efficiency and the Foundation of Everything

Every conversation about Notre Dame's 2026 ceiling begins in the same place — under center, with a redshirt sophomore quarterback whose growth from his first start to where he stands today represents one of the most impressive individual development arcs in college football.

CJ Carr did not arrive at Notre Dame's starting position through the transfer portal or through the kind of five-star recruiting coronation that precedes some quarterbacks before they ever take a college snap. He developed — through the program's system, under the coaching staff's instruction and through the accumulated experience of an entire season of starting at Notre Dame — into exactly what ESPN's Adam Rittenberg described as a national awards contender.

The statistical foundation that justifies that description is historically significant. Carr's 168.06 passer rating from the 2025 season was a Notre Dame program record — surpassing the previous mark held by Jimmy Clausen, a quarterback whose 2009 season is still discussed as one of the most polished individual performances in Notre Dame's quarterback history. Breaking a program record in your first year as a starter is not a product of circumstance. It is a product of genuine excellence sustained over the course of a full season against Power Four competition.

The efficiency numbers amplify the record even further. Carr completed 66.6 percent of his passes — fourth best single-season mark in Notre Dame program history across every era of Fighting Irish football. He threw 24 touchdowns against just six interceptions — and four of those six interceptions came in his first two starts, the natural adjustment period of a first-year starter navigating varsity speed for the first time. In his final ten starts of the season, Carr threw four interceptions across ten games — a turnover rate that matches the best decision-making quarterbacks in the country regardless of experience level.

The deep ball numbers are equally impressive and perhaps more revealing about what kind of quarterback Carr truly is. Eight touchdowns and zero interceptions on passes of 20 yards or more — a statistical combination that reflects both the arm talent to challenge defenses vertically and the decision-making discipline to never force throws in the most high-risk areas of the field. Zero interceptions on deep passes across an entire season is the kind of number that NFL scouts and Heisman voters notice immediately because it is so rare and so meaningful as a predictor of elite quarterback performance.

His yards-per-attempt average of 9.4 ranked second among all returning quarterbacks in the entire country — not second in the ACC, not second among independent programs, but second nationally among every returning signal caller in college football. That number reflects efficient, high-value passing that consistently moves the chains, creates explosive plays and maximizes the production value of every throw rather than accumulating yards through volume and check-downs.

The November elevation that Sporting News specifically cited in their No. 3 national quarterback ranking — a passer rating of 170.2 in the final month of the regular season — confirms what the full-season numbers suggest and then exceeds it. Carr was better in November than he was in September. He was better when the schedule was harder, the stakes were higher and the defensive preparation against him was most sophisticated. That late-season elevation is the single most reliable indicator that a quarterback's development is genuine, sustainable and pointed toward something significantly better in year two.

The growth from his first start against Miami in 2025 — when the country got its initial look at a talented but unproven first-year starter navigating an elite opponent in a high-pressure environment — to the polished, confident and statistically dominant quarterback who closed that season and walked into spring 2026 as the program's unquestioned leader is as dramatic an individual development arc as any quarterback in the country produced over the same period.

Entering 2026 with that foundation behind him — the record passer rating, the elite completion percentage, the zero deep-ball interceptions, the November elevation and a full offseason of development with Mike Denbrock building a system specifically around his strengths — Carr is not just one of the five best returning quarterbacks in the country. He is making a genuine and credible case to be the best. And the structure surrounding him in 2026 gives that case more supporting evidence than any other quarterback in college football can claim.

The Offensive Line — Elite Talent Finally in the Right Places

The offensive line evaluation is where ESPN's future power ranking for Notre Dame gets most specific and most optimistic — and for good reason. The unit that Joe Rudolph is sending onto the field in 2026 is the most thoughtfully constructed and positionally appropriate starting five he has assembled since his arrival in 2023, when Joe Alt and Blake Fisher gave Notre Dame a bookend tackle pair that now starts in the NFL.

The interior of this offensive line returns experienced, battle-tested starters whose collective knowledge of Notre Dame's blocking schemes and protection concepts gives the unit a communication and cohesion that young tackle prospects need around them to develop effectively. Ashton Craig returns at center as a legitimate Rimington Trophy contender — a distinction that reflects both the quality of Craig's individual performance and the critical importance of his role as the unit's communicator and pre-snap processor. Craig's ability to identify defensive alignments, make protection calls and ensure that every blocker on the unit is operating from the same information on every snap is the infrastructure that makes everything else on the offensive line function.

Anthonie Knapp returns at left guard — now settled into the position where Rudolph and the staff believe his ceiling is highest after two years of starting at left tackle. The move inside is not a demotion but a correction — putting a talented, experienced blocker in the alignment where his power at the point of attack, his ability to anchor against interior rushers and his two years of starting-caliber experience are most powerfully expressed. Knapp at left guard entering 2026 is a significantly more dangerous player than Knapp at left tackle — and the unit benefits immediately from having his experience and physicality deployed in the right place.

Sullivan Absher completes the interior at right guard with the competitive hunger of a redshirt junior who has waited for exactly this starting opportunity. Players who earn starting roles through development and patience rather than through recruiting star ratings tend to play with a chip-on-the-shoulder energy that makes them among the most consistently effective contributors on any offensive line — and Absher enters 2026 with every motivation to prove that the wait was worth it for both himself and the program.

The bookend tackles are where this offensive line's ceiling lives and where the most exciting development stories of the 2026 season will unfold. Will Black — a five-star recruit whose length, athleticism and pass protection tools have always projected to the blindside tackle position — takes over at left tackle for what should be a transformative first full season protecting Carr's blind side. The growing pains of a first-year starting left tackle against Power Four edge rushers are a normal and expected part of the development process — but the ceiling that Black is building toward as those growing pains accumulate into experience and confidence is the kind that changes what a program's offensive line can be for multiple seasons.

Guerby Lambert at right tackle is the complementary story — a five-star recruit from the 2024 class finally operating at the position where his physical profile projects most naturally for a full season as the unambiguous starting right tackle. Lambert's combination of size, length and athleticism gives Notre Dame a potential true bookend pair with Black on the left side — the first time since Alt and Fisher that Rudolph has had that configuration available — and the results of a full season with both tackles in their natural positions could finally deliver the dominant unit that the talent in this room has always suggested was possible.

The potential return of Charles Jagusah — a five-star recruit whose development has been delayed — adds yet another elite-recruited option to a depth chart that is already one of the deepest Rudolph has had since his arrival. The depth and quality of this offensive line room entering 2026 is genuinely exceptional — and the configuration finally matches the talent with the positional assignments that maximize every player's individual ceiling.

The Running Back Room — Dynamic Talent Ready to Carry the Load

The departure of Jeremiyah Love — the No. 3 overall pick in the NFL Draft — is the most significant personnel loss Notre Dame faces on offense heading into 2026. Love was one of the most dynamic running backs in college football, a unanimous All-American whose big-play capability and consistency defined Notre Dame's ground attack across two seasons and made him one of the most celebrated players in the program's recent history.

But the Irish are not rebuilding the backfield. They are reloading it — with a group of talented, complementary backs whose collective skill set gives Mike Denbrock's offense a multi-dimensional ground game that can attack defenses in ways that a single-back approach never allows.

Aneyas Williams steps into the featured role with the physical tools, competitive instincts and playmaking ability to make the transition from Love to the next era of Notre Dame running back excellence as smooth as the talent in the room allows. Williams's combination of acceleration, vision and contact balance gives the Irish a back who can operate effectively in Notre Dame's zone-blocking scheme — identifying cutback lanes, setting up blocks and accelerating through holes before defenders can close them with the quickness that makes him a natural fit for the concepts Denbrock calls most frequently.

Williams's versatility as a receiver out of the backfield adds a dimension to Notre Dame's passing game that forces defensive coordinators to honor the check-down and screen game on every snap — pulling linebackers and safeties into coverage assignments that open the intermediate passing windows where Carr's accuracy and anticipation are most devastating. A running back who can genuinely threaten defenses both between the tackles and in the passing game is one of the most valuable offensive assets any coordinator can have — and Williams brings both dimensions to Notre Dame's 2026 backfield.

The depth behind Williams gives Denbrock genuine flexibility in how he deploys the ground game. Multiple capable backs with different physical profiles and running styles creates the kind of schematic variety that keeps defensive coordinators from settling into comfortable run defense adjustments — because the same blocking scheme produces different looks when different runners are operating behind it.

The collective expectation for Notre Dame's 2026 running back room is not to replace what Love provided individually but to provide what the room as a whole can produce collectively — and the talent assembled gives the Irish offense every reason to believe that collective production will be more than sufficient to keep the ground game a genuine threat that defenses must account for on every single snap.

The Wide Receiver Room — More Weapons Than CJ Carr Has Ever Had

If the offensive line case for Notre Dame's No. 1 ranking is built on positional construction and the running back case is built on dynamic talent filling a significant departure, the wide receiver case is the most straightforwardly exciting component of the entire offensive evaluation — because the group Carr is throwing to in 2026 is simply better than any receiver room he has had available in his Notre Dame career.

Jordan Faison returns as the established and proven No. 1 option after leading Notre Dame with 40 receptions, 640 yards and four touchdowns in 2025 — the team's leading receiver, produced while sharing a room with Malachi Fields and Jaden Greathouse. Faison's decision to give up lacrosse and commit entirely to football this offseason is the kind of singular focus investment that produces significant statistical leaps — and the Carr-Faison connection that produced 40 catches in a season where Fields was the projected No. 1 option is primed to become something even more dominant when Faison enters 2026 as the unambiguous first read with an undivided preparation investment behind him.

Jaden Greathouse brings the explosive playmaking dimension that makes Notre Dame's receiver room genuinely dangerous rather than simply functional. Greathouse's combination of separation quickness, yards-after-catch capability and big-play instincts — demonstrated emphatically in Notre Dame's 2024 postseason run — gives Carr a receiver who can take a short completion and turn it into a long gain, a slant route and turn it into a crossing score and a go ball and create the kind of contested-catch opportunity that changes field position in an instant. Pair Greathouse's explosion with Faison's reliable production and Notre Dame presents opposing secondaries with a No. 1 and No. 2 receiver combination that is as difficult to defend as any in the country.

The transfer portal additions elevate the room from very good to genuinely elite. Mylan Graham arrives from Ohio State with Big Ten starting experience, proven production at one of the most demanding programs in college football and the physical tools that made him a highly coveted recruit before his time at Ohio State. Graham does not need to be the No. 1 receiver or carry the production load to be enormously valuable — he needs to be a legitimate third option who punishes defensive coordinators for the coverage attention they devote to Faison and Greathouse. With the coverage bracket that those two demand, Graham will see single coverage against the best corner available on a given defense — and his Ohio State-tested talent gives him every tool to make opposing teams pay for that coverage decision.

Quincy Porter provides additional receiving depth from the same Ohio State program — another experienced, proven pass catcher who brings Big Ten competition reps to a Notre Dame receiver room that needed exactly this kind of experienced depth to complement its returning talent.

Three legitimate receiving threats with different physical profiles, different route-running styles and different strengths within the passing game — backed by experienced portal additions who contribute immediately and meaningfully to the room's depth and versatility. The receiver room Carr inherits in 2026 is the best he has ever had and one of the most complete groups in college football heading into the season.

The Defense — Proven Production Returns, Elite Additions Bolster the Front

While the offensive case for Notre Dame's No. 1 ranking builds from quarterback to skill positions to the line, the defensive case begins and ends with a simple and powerful truth — the production that made Notre Dame's defense one of the best units in the country late in the 2025 season is returning at a remarkably high rate, and the additions made through the transfer portal have addressed the few areas where reinforcement was genuinely needed.

Leonard Moore is the centerpiece of everything Notre Dame does defensively in 2026 and the most important returning player on the entire roster. The best cornerback in college football — PFF's No. 1 ranked returning cornerback for the second consecutive season — enters 2026 as the consensus Thorpe Award favorite after earning first-team unanimous All-America honors in 2025. Moore's 91.4 coverage grade and 90.9 overall defensive grade led all Power Four starting cornerbacks. He led Notre Dame with five interceptions while being targeted on only 11.5 percent of his coverage snaps — the ultimate testament to a cornerback so dominant that the entire country's offenses chose to scheme away from him rather than challenge him.

With Moore locking down one side of the field, the rest of Notre Dame's secondary carries a freedom and flexibility that makes the entire defensive system more dangerous. Christian Gray returns as a proven secondary contributor whose versatility allows defensive coordinator Chris Ash to present multiple coverage looks without sacrificing quality at any individual position. The addition of DJ McKinney from Colorado via the transfer portal gives the secondary a third proven option — a player with starting experience against Power Four competition who slides into a complementary role alongside Moore and Gray and completes what ESPN identified as potentially the biggest strength on Notre Dame's entire 2026 roster.

Adon Shuler returns at safety with the kind of range, instincts and ball-hawking ability that make him one of the most exciting developmental stories in Notre Dame's defensive backfield. His presence in the deep middle — rotating into coverage, supporting the run and creating the kind of turnover opportunities that change field position and momentum — gives Ash's secondary a complete, complementary set of pieces that no passing game can attack with a single schematic approach.

The linebacker corps is anchored by Drayk Bowen — one of the most complete linebackers in college football and the defensive engine that makes Notre Dame's second level function at its highest capacity. Bowen's combination of run-stopping physicality, coverage range and pre-snap processing intelligence gives the entire defense a communicator and lead tackler who elevates every player around him. His return alongside the developing linebacker talent around him gives Brian Jean-Mary — veteran defensive assistant now overseeing the linebacker group — proven production to build around from day one.

The Defensive Line — Transfer Additions Transform an Already Talented Front

The most dramatic and consequential roster construction development on Notre Dame's defensive side heading into 2026 is the transformation of the defensive line through a combination of proven returning contributors and high-impact transfer additions that address the program's most critical pass rush needs.

Boubacar Traore returns as Notre Dame's most dangerous and most disruptive pass rush weapon — a junior edge whose combination of first-step quickness, motor and technical pass rush arsenal makes him a consistent threat to influence every passing down. Traore's presence gives Ash's defensive front a proven, established disruptive force that new additions can complement rather than replace — the difference between addition by addition and addition by multiplication when it comes to what a defensive line can become collectively.

Bryce Young returns as a versatile and experienced contributor whose ability to line up in multiple positions along the defensive front gives Ash the flexibility to create different alignments and present different problems to opposing offenses without sacrificing individual quality at any spot. Young's experience and positional versatility are the kind of foundational traits that make an entire defensive line unit more difficult to prepare for — because the combinations he enables on the front are more numerous and more creative than a less flexible roster allows.

Jason Onye provides senior-level experience and established production at the defensive tackle position — a player whose understanding of what Notre Dame's defensive system demands and what elite college football competition requires gives the younger contributors on the defensive line a standard to measure themselves against and a guide to follow in the most demanding preparation moments of the week.

The transfer additions are where the defensive line story becomes genuinely transformative. Francis Brewu arrives from Pittsburgh with a national reputation as one of the most physically dominant interior defensive linemen in the transfer portal — a player whose combination of power, leverage and relentless effort at the point of attack gives Notre Dame's front an interior disruptive presence that immediately elevates the entire unit's run-stopping and pass-rushing capability. Brewu's Pittsburgh experience against ACC competition means his transition to Notre Dame's defensive system is not a leap into the unknown but a progression within a competitive environment he already understands.

Keon Keeley arrives from Alabama with the pedigree and physical tools that made him one of the most coveted defensive line recruits in his class — and the development infrastructure of Alabama's program having already invested significant time and resources into maximizing his potential. Keeley gives Notre Dame an edge presence whose ceiling, if fully realized under Ash's system and Partridge's coaching, could be the most disruptive individual defensive line performance the Irish have produced in years.

Tionne Gray from Oregon rounds out the transfer additions with starting experience and proven production from a Pac-12-level program — a player whose senior eligibility makes him the most immediately impactful of the three portal additions in terms of on-field availability and competitive readiness.

A New Defensive Staff That Hit the Ground Running

The most compelling subplot of Notre Dame's defensive preparation heading into 2026 is the transition to a reshaped defensive staff — and how smoothly that transition appears to have gone during spring practice despite the significant personnel changes that coordinator Chris Ash made to his unit this offseason.

Aaron Henry joins the staff to coach defensive backs, reuniting with Ash in a configuration that the coordinator knows and trusts from previous stops in his coaching career. The comfort and communication between Henry and Ash — built on an existing professional relationship — eliminates the adjustment period that typically accompanies new staff additions and allows the defensive back group to benefit from coaching cohesion from the very first practice of the spring.

Charlie Partridge takes over the defensive line — a coach whose recruiting track record and development philosophy give Notre Dame's front seven a proven leader whose ability to maximize pass rush talent and interior disruption is already on display in the 2027 recruiting class, where he landed the No. 2 defensive tackle in the country in David Folorunsho during his first recruiting cycle.

Brian Jean-Mary's oversight of the linebackers completes a defensive staff whose collective experience and internal cohesion make the transition from the previous staff configuration feel less like a rebuild and more like a refinement.

The spring practice reports that emerged from the new defensive staff's first extended look at the roster were encouraging across the board — a unit that absorbed significant coaching change, integrated transfer additions and developed communication between new coaches and returning players with a smoothness that reflects both the quality of the coaches Ash brought in and the leadership of the veteran players already in the building.

A defensive staff transition that goes well in the spring is not a guarantee of autumn dominance — but a transition that goes poorly in the spring is almost always visible in September. Notre Dame's spring went well. The foundation for what this defense can become in 2026 under its new coaching configuration is as solid as any rebuilt staff could reasonably hope to establish in a single spring session.

The Bottom Line — No. 1 is Not a Gift. It Is a Grade.

ESPN evaluated 68 Power Four programs. They looked at quarterback situations, trench outlooks, roster management philosophies, collections of star power and coaching staff quality. They graded every program with the analytical rigor that separates meaningful future power rankings from preseason popularity contests.

Notre Dame came out No. 1.

Not because of history. Not because of brand. Not because of 11 national championships and one of the most famous stadiums in American sports. Because of CJ Carr's historically efficient first year and the second-year leap that every indicator supports. Because of an offensive line finally deploying its elite bookend talent in its natural positions. Because of a dynamic, versatile running back room. Because of a receiver group more talented and more experienced than any Carr has had available. Because of Leonard Moore being the best cornerback in America and Drayk Bowen being one of the best linebackers. Because of Brewu, Keeley and Gray transforming a defensive line that was already talented. Because of a new defensive staff that transitioned smoothly and a head coach who turned down the NFL to keep building something in South Bend.

Phil Steele has Notre Dame No. 1 in his preseason rankings. ESPN has Notre Dame No. 1 in their future power rankings.

The program that Marcus Freeman has built did not get to the top of those lists by accident.

It earned every spot.

Notre Dame 2027 Linebacker Recruiting — Brian Jean-Mary's Chance to Build Something Special

With two official visitors on the way and Amarri Irvin already committed, the Irish linebacker class could become one of the best in recent memory

Notre Dame's 2026 linebacker recruiting class is building toward something that could redefine the position group in South Bend for years to come — and the man at the center of it all is linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary, who is closing in on a group that Lucky Lefty co-host Shaun Davis and Malik Zaire are already calling potentially game changing if the remaining pieces fall into place.

The foundation is already in place. Amarri Irvin, the Florida linebacker who committed to Notre Dame earlier in the cycle, gives Jean-Mary a proven cornerstone to build around. Irvin's presence alone signals that the Irish are recruiting the position at an elite level in this class — but what comes next could elevate the group from very good to genuinely special.

Two linebacker prospects are scheduled for official visits to Notre Dame, and the Irish coaching staff is pushing hard to close on both. One prospect that had been in the conversation — Noah Glover — came off the board earlier this month when he committed to Miami, removing himself from Notre Dame's official visit list. But the two remaining targets represent the kind of talent that, if signed alongside Irvin, would give Notre Dame a linebacker trio capable of competing with any group assembled nationally in this recruiting cycle.

Jean-Mary's ability to close on these two visitors is the central question surrounding Notre Dame's linebacker recruiting between now and signing day. If he lands both, the trio with Irvin becomes one of the most celebrated linebacker hauls in Notre Dame's recent recruiting history — a group that could be mentioned alongside the program's best position-specific classes of the past decade.

The linebacker position has been a focal point of Notre Dame's defensive identity under Marcus Freeman, whose background as a defensive coordinator and linebackers coach gives him a particular investment in the position group's development and recruiting. Jean-Mary carries that torch forward in 2026 — and based on the talent currently in play and the official visits on the calendar, he appears to be carrying it at exactly the right height.

The official visits will tell the story. Notre Dame has done the work to get these prospects on campus. Now comes the closing — the part of the recruiting process where relationships, vision and the weight of Notre Dame's football tradition either win the room or don't.

Based on everything surrounding this class so far, the Irish coaching staff appears ready to win the room.

Jordan Faison's Growth Sets the Stage for a 2026 Breakout at Notre Dame

Breakout seasons don't materialize from thin air. They are built — rep by rep, season by season, through a progression of growth that is visible in the numbers if you know where to look and patient enough to watch the arc develop over time rather than demanding immediate results.

Jordan Faison's arc at Notre Dame is one of the most clearly defined and statistically compelling progression stories in college football heading into 2026. Look at the numbers across each season he has played and the trajectory is unmistakable — a receiver who has gotten measurably, undeniably better every single time he has stepped on a college football field, against better competition, in bigger moments, with higher stakes surrounding every performance.

Now, entering 2026 as Notre Dame's established No. 1 wide receiver and quarterback CJ Carr's most trusted target, everything Faison has built across three seasons of steady statistical growth is pointed directly at one destination — a breakout season that the numbers have been predicting for anyone paying close enough attention.

The progression is real. The breakout is coming. And the story of how Jordan Faison got here is worth telling in full.

Where It Started — A Walk-On With Zero Catches and One Moment

The baseline of Faison's progression at Notre Dame is important context for everything that follows — because where he started makes where he is going that much more remarkable.

Faison arrived at Notre Dame as a walk-on. Not a three-star recruit who needed development time. Not a portal addition brought in for a specific role. A walk-on — a player who had to earn everything from scratch against a roster filled with recruited talent that arrived with built-in advantages in opportunity and visibility.

Through the first several weeks of his freshman season in 2023, Faison had zero catches. Not a breakout waiting to happen, not a player on the verge — zero production, zero statistical footprint, zero reason for the outside world to pay attention.

Then came Louisville. Two catches, 48 yards, one touchdown — and a trajectory that changed permanently from that moment forward. In the final six games of that regular season, Faison went from invisible to indispensable, finishing with 17 catches for 274 yards and three touchdowns once he got going. His freshman year closed with a five-catch, 115-yard, one-touchdown performance against a ranked Oregon State team in the Sun Bowl — a statement game that planted the flag for everything that was coming.

The foundation had been laid. The progression was about to begin in earnest.

2024 — The Injury-Interrupted Proof of Concept

The 2024 season was supposed to be the year Faison announced himself to the wider college football world on a full-season scale. Injuries had other plans — limiting his overall regular season production and forcing a level of patience and resilience that tested his commitment to the process.

But here is what the 2024 numbers reveal when you look at them honestly — even in an injury-hampered season, Faison produced when he was healthy, and when the playoffs arrived and his health returned, he delivered the kind of performances that proved the Sun Bowl was not a one-game sample of his ceiling.

Against Indiana and Georgia in back-to-back playoff games, Faison recorded 11 catches for 135 yards — producing at exactly the moment Notre Dame needed its receivers most, on the biggest stage the college football regular season offers, against playoff-caliber defenses that had spent weeks preparing specifically for Notre Dame's offense.

The 2024 season's most important contribution to Faison's progression was not statistical. It was the proof that he could be relied upon in high-stakes moments, that the Louisville and Sun Bowl performances were character revelations rather than flukes and that when his body allowed him to play at full capacity, the production followed immediately and emphatically.

That proof set the stage for what 2025 was about to become.

2025 — The Statistical Leap That Changed the Conversation

If 2023 planted the seed and 2024 proved the concept despite limited opportunity, then 2025 was the season Jordan Faison's progression announced itself to the entire country with a clarity that could not be dismissed, debated or explained away.

Forty receptions. 640 receiving yards. Four touchdowns. Notre Dame's leading receiver — not a portal addition, not a five-star recruit, not the player anyone had projected to lead this offense statistically when the season began.

The numbers represent a genuine statistical leap that reflects every element of Faison's growth as a receiver. More receptions than any season before. More yards than any season before. More touchdowns in a single full campaign than his career suggested was coming. And all of it produced while sharing a receiver room with Malachi Fields — a four-year Virginia transfer who arrived specifically to be the go-to target — and Jaden Greathouse, who had been one of the most talked-about receivers in the program entering the season.

Faison outproduced them both. Not because the opportunity fell to him by default but because he earned it, week after week, with performances that proved he was the most reliable and productive weapon in Carr's passing arsenal.

The weekly production in 2025 told the story of a receiver operating with a consistency and confidence that only comes from genuine development. Five receptions for 33 yards and a touchdown against Miami in the season opener — no easing into the season, no waiting for momentum to build. Five catches for 105 yards and a touchdown against Purdue two weeks later — back-to-back productive performances that established a standard rather than teasing one. Seven catches for 89 yards against Arkansas on the road — producing in an environment where receivers are routinely neutralized by crowd noise, hostile atmospheres and game-plan-specific coverage. Six catches for 83 yards against Boise State — maintaining production against a defense built specifically to take away big plays in the passing game.

Then the regular season finale — three catches for 68 yards and a touchdown against Stanford on the road — a closing performance that mirrored the Sun Bowl statement from his freshman year and confirmed that Faison's best games consistently come when the moment is largest.

The Carr-Faison Connection — Chemistry Built Over Time

Numbers tell one part of the Faison story in 2025. The other part is the relationship that developed between him and quarterback CJ Carr throughout the season — a connection that grew more precise, more instinctive and more productive as the weeks accumulated and the two players built the kind of shared football language that only develops through sustained repetition and genuine trust.

Carr arrived in 2025 as a first-year starter navigating all the challenges that come with that transition — learning to manage game speed, make pre-snap reads under pressure and build the kind of confidence in his receivers that allows a quarterback to throw with conviction into tight windows against elite coverage. Faison became his anchor in that process.

The Carr-Faison connection worked because Faison gave his quarterback something every first-year starter desperately needs — a receiver who ran precise routes, found soft spots in zone coverage with intelligence rather than just athleticism, presented a reliable and consistently available target and made the right play after the catch to maximize every opportunity. Carr learned he could trust Faison in any situation, against any coverage and in any field position — and that trust, built game by game throughout 2025, is now entering 2026 as one of Notre Dame's most valuable offensive assets.

A quarterback and his No. 1 receiver entering their second full season together with an established connection and a full year of shared starting experience is a luxury Marcus Freeman has never had in his tenure at Notre Dame. Carr and Faison have it now — and what that chemistry can produce with a full offseason of work behind it is one of the most exciting questions surrounding Notre Dame's 2026 offense.

The Decision That Unlocks the Next Level

Before the statistical case for a 2026 breakout can be fully made, the offseason decision that makes it possible deserves its own recognition — because Jordan Faison made a choice this spring that speaks directly to how seriously he is approaching this opportunity.

Faison gave up lacrosse. Completely. Fully committed to football as the singular focus of his athletic life going forward.

For a multi-sport athlete, that decision carries real weight. It means every offseason hour that was previously divided between two sports is now directed entirely toward football. Every training session, every film session, every route-running repetition, every moment spent deepening his understanding of the offense and strengthening his connection with Carr — all of it now happens in the undivided context of a player who has chosen football as his complete identity.

The technical refinements that decision enables — sharper route running, more refined release packages against press coverage, deeper route tree development and the kind of receiver-quarterback timing work that only accumulates through concentrated repetition — are exactly what separate a very good college receiver from a great one. Faison has invested in all of it this offseason, and reports from South Bend suggest it is already showing up in the way he is operating within Notre Dame's offensive system.

The player who led Notre Dame in receiving in 2025 while still splitting his attention between two sports is now a full-time football player preparing for what could be his final season in South Bend. That combination of established production and elevated preparation is a genuinely dangerous thing for opposing defenses.

Reading the Progression — What the Numbers Say About 2026

Pull back and look at Jordan Faison's statistical arc across his Notre Dame career and the trajectory draws itself.

A walk-on with zero catches who finished his freshman year with 17 receptions, 274 yards and three touchdowns in six games once he got going — including a 115-yard Sun Bowl performance against a ranked opponent. An injury-hampered sophomore season that still produced 11 catches for 135 yards in two playoff games when his health returned. A junior season that produced 40 receptions, 640 yards and four touchdowns as the team's leading receiver — with consistent weekly production against a diverse slate of competition that included road games, playoff-caliber defenses and opponents that specifically schemed to take him away.

Each season has been better than the one before it. Each opportunity has been maximized more completely than the previous one. Each stage of the progression has revealed a receiver who is not just adding statistical volume but genuinely improving as a route runner, a contested-catch threat, a yards-after-catch contributor and a football intelligence that allows him to manipulate coverage in ways that create opportunities for himself and for the receivers around him.

The natural extension of that arc — a returning No. 1 receiver, a full offseason dedicated entirely to football, a second season of genuine chemistry with his starting quarterback and a role in the offense that is now unambiguously his — points toward one thing.

A breakout season. The kind that turns a compelling progression story into a national conversation about one of the best receivers in college football.

The Stage Is Set

Marcus Freeman has never entered a season with a returning No. 1 wide receiver. He has never had all three coordinators return simultaneously. He has never had a returning starting quarterback with a full season of starting experience already behind him. In 2026, he has all three — and Jordan Faison is the player who ties them together most directly.

Carr knows where Faison will be. Faison knows what Carr needs. The offense knows how to use them together. And Faison has spent an offseason investing everything he has into becoming the best version of himself as a receiver before what could be his final opportunity to make a definitive statement in South Bend.

The progression from walk-on afterthought to Notre Dame's leading receiver to preseason No. 1 target entering 2026 is one of the best individual development stories in Marcus Freeman's tenure. The numbers back every word of it.

Now comes the breakout. The progression has been building toward it for three years.

In 2026, Jordan Faison is ready to arrive — completely, definitively and on the biggest stage Notre Dame has to offer.

chicago’s elite Defensive Tackle David Folorunsho Brings Top-10 Talent to Notre Dame

Notre Dame has landed one of the most uniquely gifted defensive tackles in the 2027 recruiting class, securing a commitment from Chicago's David Folorunsho — a St. Patrick standout whose combination of explosive speed, raw power and positional versatility makes him precisely the kind of defensive lineman that transforms how a coordinator can build and deploy a front. And in a story woven together by deep Notre Dame relationships at every level of his development, Folorunsho's path to South Bend feels less like a recruiting victory and more like an inevitable homecoming.

Folorunsho chose Notre Dame over Miami, Georgia, Michigan and Texas Tech, handing first-year defensive line coach Charlie Partridge one of the most significant early recruiting wins of his tenure and giving the Fighting Irish a cornerstone piece for a defensive front that is being built to play multiple looks, confuse offensive lines and dominate from the inside out.

A Swiss Army Knife on the Defensive Front

The first thing that jumps off the film when you watch David Folorunsho is that he doesn't fit neatly into a single box — and that is exactly what makes him so dangerous, and so valuable to Notre Dame's defensive system.

At 6-3 and 285 pounds, Folorunsho has the size, anchor and power to line up as a true nose tackle and own the interior against the run. But what separates him from a conventional space-eater is the explosion and lateral athleticism that allow him to slide outside, line up over a tackle and win in ways that interior linemen simply aren't supposed to win. He can two-gap, he can shoot gaps, he can be a three-technique on one snap and a nose on the next. That ability to play multiple alignments without losing effectiveness is rare at any level of football — at the high school level, it is almost unheard of.

For Notre Dame's defensive staff, this versatility is not a bonus — it is the foundation of why they wanted Folorunsho so badly in the first place. The ability to present different fronts, shift alignments pre-snap and keep offensive lines off balance requires players who can execute in multiple roles without hesitation. Folorunsho is exactly that player. He gives defensive coordinators a true chess piece — someone who can be the answer to multiple problems on any given game plan.

Explosive Speed That Redefines What an Interior Lineman Can Do

What truly elevates Folorunsho into the conversation as a national top-10 prospect is a first step that simply does not belong on a 285-pound defensive tackle — and yet there it is, every single snap, blowing up offensive linemen before they can establish their sets.

His get-off is elite. The moment the ball moves, Folorunsho is already in the backfield mentally and closing on the quarterback or ball carrier physically. That kind of explosion draws immediate comparisons to former Notre Dame defensive line standouts Sheldon Day and Rylie Mills — players who combined interior size with an athletic profile that made them impossible to account for on a one-on-one basis. Folorunsho is cut from that same cloth.

That speed off the line translates directly into production. In his dominant junior season at St. Patrick, Folorunsho posted 55 tackles, 18 tackles for loss and five sacks — numbers that reflect a player who is not waiting for plays to come to him but actively hunting them down with first-step quickness that offensive linemen at the high school level simply cannot match. As he continues to develop that explosion under Notre Dame's elite strength and conditioning program, the production that made the entire country take notice will only grow.

His hands are equally impressive — fast, strong and violent at the point of contact. He doesn't just use his speed to get into the backfield; he uses his hands to win the leverage battle and finish plays with authority. The combination of an elite first step with fast, powerful hands is what allows Folorunsho to rack up tackles for loss against double teams, against chip blocks, against every scheme an offensive coordinator has thrown at him. He finds a way to win.

Power That Anchors the Run Defense

Speed and versatility tell only part of the Folorunsho story. The other half is the kind of raw, physical power that allows Notre Dame to line him up in the middle of the field and simply dare opposing offenses to run at him.

Folorunsho's ability to anchor against double teams, absorb contact without losing ground and still make plays at the point of attack gives Notre Dame's defensive front a true run-stuffing anchor when the game plan calls for it. He is not a finesse player who disappears when the line of scrimmage becomes a phone booth — he thrives in that environment just as much as he does in open-field pursuit.

That balance of speed and power is what gives Notre Dame's defensive staff the freedom to be genuinely creative with their front structures. They can ask Folorunsho to be a disruptive, gap-shooting interior pass rusher on one series and a two-gap run-stopper on the next. Offensive coordinators cannot simply account for one dimension of his game — they have to prepare for all of them, and that is an enormous advantage for a Notre Dame defense that wants to make life as complicated as possible for opposing offenses.

The Notre Dame Brotherhood That Brought Him Home

David Folorunsho's commitment to Notre Dame is not simply the result of a great recruiting pitch. It is the product of relationships built over years by people who love Notre Dame deeply and poured that love into a young man who was watching and absorbing all of it.

The head coach at St. Patrick is Tom Zbikowski — a name that needs no introduction in South Bend. Zbikowski was one of the most celebrated safeties in Notre Dame history, a hard-hitting, instinct-driven defender whose toughness and competitive fire defined his Irish career. As the head coach guiding Folorunsho's development at St. Patrick, Zbikowski brought Notre Dame's standard of toughness, discipline and preparation to the program every single day. Folorunsho didn't just hear about what it means to be a Notre Dame football player — he was coached by one, shaped by one and held to that standard throughout his high school career.

The Notre Dame thread runs even deeper at St. Patrick. School president Dan Santucci is himself a former Notre Dame starter and a teammate of Zbikowski's with the Fighting Irish. The culture inside St. Patrick's walls — the standard of excellence, the pride in academics, the understanding of what Notre Dame football demands — is not incidental. It is baked into the institution by men who lived it. Folorunsho has been immersed in that environment from the moment he arrived at St. Patrick, long before Notre Dame's coaching staff ever made a formal offer.

And then there is Kerry Neal of WIN Performance, Folorunsho's trainer — a man whose fingerprints are all over the physical transformation and athletic development that turned a three-star prospect into a consensus Top-10 national recruit almost overnight. Neal's work with Folorunsho refined the explosiveness, built the functional strength and honed the technical skills that made the entire country take notice after his junior season. The elite first step, the violent hands, the ability to play with leverage and power at 285 pounds — Neal had a major hand in building all of it. Notre Dame isn't just getting a great player; they're getting a great player who has been developed by an elite trainer who understood exactly how to maximize his gifts.

Together, Zbikowski, Santucci and Neal form a triangle of trusted, Notre Dame-connected mentors who shaped David Folorunsho at every level — on the field, in the weight room and within the walls of his school. When Notre Dame came calling, Folorunsho wasn't hearing about the program for the first time. He already knew what it stood for. He had been living it.

Charlie Partridge Wins Big in Year One

The significance of this commitment for first-year defensive line coach Charlie Partridge cannot be overstated. Landing the No. 2 defensive tackle in the country — the No. 9 overall prospect nationally according to Rivals and On3 — against Georgia, Michigan, Miami and Texas Tech in his very first recruiting cycle at Notre Dame is a statement that echoes across the entire college football landscape. Partridge didn't need a grace period. He identified the right player, built the right relationships and delivered one of the biggest defensive line commitments Notre Dame has seen in years.

A Class That Keeps Getting Better

Folorunsho becomes the 17th commitment in Notre Dame's 2027 recruiting class, joining a group that already features quarterback Champ Monds, running backs Lathan Whisenton and Isaiah Rogers, wide receiver Jackson Coleman, tight end Titus Hawk, offensive linemen Olu Olubobola, Jackson Hill, James Halter and Richie Flanigan, defensive end Aidan O'Neil, linebacker Amarri Irvin, cornerbacks Xavier Hasan and Ace Alston, safety Zayden Gamble, nickel John Gay III and long snapper Sean Kraft.

Adding a consensus Top-10 national prospect with Folorunsho's unique skill set doesn't just deepen the class — it changes the ceiling of what this Notre Dame defense can become.

The Bottom Line

David Folorunsho is the rare defensive tackle who can do everything — stop the run with power, rush the passer with elite speed and line up in multiple alignments without losing a step. He is a versatile, explosive, physically dominant interior defender who gives Notre Dame's defensive staff the freedom to be as creative and multiple as any front in college football.

He is also a Chicago kid who was raised in a Notre Dame household by a Notre Dame coaching legend, developed by an elite trainer in Kerry Neal, and supported by a school president who wore the same Notre Dame uniform. When David Folorunsho commits to the Fighting Irish, it isn't just a recruiting win. It is a family reunion — and Notre Dame's defensive front of the future is better for it.

Joe Rudolph and Notre Dame Flip OT Jackson Hill From UCLA

Joe Rudolph didn't have to go after Jackson Hill. That is the first thing you need to understand about this commitment — and it is the most important context for everything that follows.

Notre Dame's offensive line coach already had three quality commitments locked in for the 2027 class. He has five-star target Albert Simien scheduled for an official visit on June 19th. He signed six offensive linemen just a year ago. By any conventional measure of roster construction, Rudolph had room to be patient, selective and conservative with the next offensive line commitment in this class.

Instead, he went to California, identified a 6-7, 300-pound three-star prospect playing at Chaminade Prep, made a conviction call that the recruiting services had this one wrong — and didn't stop until Jackson Hill flipped his commitment from UCLA and chose Notre Dame.

That decision tells you everything about how Joe Rudolph evaluates offensive linemen and why his track record of developing players that others overlooked is one of the most quietly elite résumés in college football coaching.

Rudolph Made a Conviction Call — Not a Desperation Move

The easiest way to misread this commitment is to assume Notre Dame added Hill because they needed bodies or because the elite targets weren't materializing. Neither is true, and Rudolph's own actions prove it.

Simien, one of the most coveted offensive line prospects in the entire 2027 class, is still very much in play for Notre Dame with a June official visit on the schedule. Rudolph is not closing the door on elite five-star additions to this class — he is pursuing them aggressively at the same time he committed Hill. That simultaneity is the key. This was not an either-or decision driven by scarcity. It was a both-and decision driven by genuine belief in what Jackson Hill can become.

When an offensive line coach of Rudolph's caliber pursues a prospect while elite alternatives are still available and actively being recruited, that pursuit is a statement. It means Rudolph watched the film, saw something real and decided that waiting on rankings to catch up to his evaluation was a luxury Notre Dame couldn't afford — because eventually someone else was going to see what he saw, and by then Hill would already be committed somewhere else.

Rudolph saw it first. He moved first. That is what separates elite evaluators from everyone else.

The Rudolph Track Record — Turning Upside Into Production

To fully appreciate why this commitment makes sense, you have to understand the history Joe Rudolph brings to offensive line evaluation — because his track record of identifying players whose rankings dramatically understated their actual ceiling is not a coincidence. It is a philosophy.

Throughout his coaching career at Wisconsin, Pittsburgh and now Notre Dame, Rudolph has consistently identified offensive linemen that recruiting services rated as good-not-great prospects and developed them into legitimate NFL-caliber players. The pattern is unmistakable to anyone who has followed his career closely. Rudolph does not simply recruit the rankings — he recruits the player, the frame, the athleticism and the coachability. He asks one central question when he evaluates an offensive line prospect: what does this player become when I get three years of elite coaching, elite strength training and elite competition into his body?

That question produces very different answers than a recruiting service snapshot of a 17-year-old's current production level. And time and again, Rudolph's answers have been proven right when the players he believed in reach their junior and senior seasons and the rest of the country finally sees what he saw years earlier.

Jackson Hill is the latest player to benefit from that evaluation process — and if Rudolph's track record means anything, Hill's three-star ranking will feel like a distant memory long before his Notre Dame career is finished.

What Rudolph Sees in Hill That the Rankings Don't Capture

So what exactly did Joe Rudolph see when he watched Jackson Hill that convinced him to go all-in on a three-star prospect while five-star targets remained on the board?

Start with the foundation that cannot be faked and cannot be coached — the physical profile. At 6-7 and 300 pounds, Hill already possesses the frame that NFL offensive line scouts put at the very top of their evaluation criteria. Length is the single most non-negotiable physical attribute for a developmental offensive tackle, and Hill has it in a way that only a handful of prospects in any given recruiting class possess. Those long arms allow him to strike pass rushers before they can get into his body, create natural leverage advantages in the run game and give coaches the raw material to build a finished product that can hold up against elite college pass rushers for four years.

But Rudolph didn't fall in love with Hill's size alone. What truly separated Hill in Rudolph's evaluation is the athleticism that lives inside that massive frame — and the proof of it comes from the most unexpected place imaginable.

Jackson Hill plays catcher in baseball. Let that sink in for a moment. A 6-7, 300-pound athlete who lines up behind home plate, receives pitches at full velocity, blocks balls in the dirt, controls a running game and makes throws to every base is not just big. He is a legitimate multi-sport athlete whose body moves with a coordination and quickness that his size has no business producing. The quick-twitch hand-eye coordination required to catch at a high level translates directly to an offensive lineman's most critical skill set — active, fast, coordinated hands that can punch, redirect and sustain blocks against elite competition.

That dual-sport athleticism tells Rudolph something the film alone might not fully communicate — that Hill's body is not done developing, his coordination is already advanced beyond what his football experience reflects and his ceiling as an offensive lineman has not yet come close to being reached.

Add to that a powerful run-blocking foundation already in place, the football IQ to potentially play both tackle and guard at the college level and the academic profile that attracted offers from Penn and Dartmouth alongside his Power Four football offers — and what Rudolph saw was not a three-star offensive tackle. He saw a Power Four starter hiding inside a recruiting ranking that hadn't caught up to reality yet.

The Positional Upside That Makes Hill Even More Valuable

One of the most underappreciated elements of Hill's commitment is what his positional flexibility means for Notre Dame's offensive line depth over the next four years.

His natural size and length make him an obvious developmental tackle — the kind of player you project to protect the blind side as he refines his technique and adds functional strength. But Rudolph has also identified a realistic path where Hill moves inside to guard, where his 6-7, 300-pound power frame would make him one of the most physically imposing interior blockers in the ACC. A guard with Hill's size and athletic profile is a mauler in the run game — the kind of interior presence that creates movement at the line of scrimmage and gives a rushing attack a completely different dimension.

That flexibility to develop Hill at multiple positions is a luxury for Rudolph as he constructs the offensive line room around the 2027 class. It means Hill isn't locked into a single role before he ever takes a college snap. It means Rudolph can put him where the offense needs him most as the depth chart evolves. And it means that even if the tackle spots ahead of him are filled with elite talent, Hill's value to the program doesn't diminish — it simply finds a different expression.

The Class Context — Building With Depth and Range

Understanding why Rudolph went after Hill also requires understanding the broader 2027 offensive line class Notre Dame is assembling — because this group is being built with a specific philosophy in mind.

Olu Olubobola is the crown jewel — an elite, nationally-ranked New Jersey tackle whose offer list reads like a who's who of college football royalty. James Halter brings physicality and toughness from Pennsylvania. Richie Flanigan adds size and length from Wisconsin. And now Hill contributes a high-ceiling developmental profile with rare physical tools from the West Coast.

Rudolph is not building a one-dimensional offensive line class of interchangeable prospects. He is building a room with range — elite recruits with proven rankings alongside high-upside players whose ceilings may ultimately be just as high, or higher, than the stars suggested. That is how championship offensive line rooms get built. Not by chasing the same profile over and over, but by identifying different kinds of value and trusting your evaluation process to sort out who becomes what.

With Simien's official visit still on the calendar, this class could add another elite headline name before the 2027 cycle is complete. But Rudolph's willingness to commit Hill now — before that visit, while Simien is still in play — tells you he sees Hill's value as independent of any other decision. Hill earned this commitment on his own merits, on his own timeline, through Rudolph's own evaluation process.

That is the highest compliment an offensive line coach can pay a prospect.

The Bottom Line

Joe Rudolph went after Jackson Hill because Joe Rudolph trusts his eyes over a ranking, his evaluation over a database and his understanding of what a 6-7, 300-pound multi-sport athlete can become over what he currently is on a recruiting service's board.

The three-star label on Hill's profile will not survive contact with Notre Dame's strength program, Rudolph's coaching and the kind of elite competition that accelerates development faster than any recruiting service can track. It never does when Rudolph makes a conviction call on a high-upside offensive lineman that others have undervalued.

Jackson Hill chose Notre Dame over UCLA because the pull of South Bend and the belief of one elite offensive line coach proved stronger than a prior commitment. Notre Dame went after Jackson Hill because Joe Rudolph saw a future starter that the rest of the country hasn't fully discovered yet.

History suggests Rudolph is right. It usually does.

Leonard moore could give notre dame first jim thorpe award

Not every star arrives with fanfare. Not every player who ends up changing a program's defensive identity does so with a five-star recruiting ranking, a top-10 national profile and the weight of enormous expectations pressing down on his shoulders from the moment he steps on campus. Some players arrive quietly, get to work and let the field do the talking — and by the time the rest of the world catches up to what they already are, the transformation from unknown to undeniable is already complete.

That is the Leonard Moore story. And as he enters what could be his final season in South Bend, it is one of the most compelling individual journeys in Notre Dame football.

Moore wasn't heralded when he arrived at Notre Dame. He wasn't the centerpiece of a signing class headline or the subject of breathless recruiting coverage. He came to South Bend without the noise that typically surrounds players of his caliber — and then he went out and became the best cornerback in college football. Quietly, completely and undeniably.

Now, as he prepares for his third season with the Fighting Irish, the entire country has caught up to what those inside Notre Dame's program recognized long ago. Leonard Moore has been added to the Jim Thorpe Award watch list — and he isn't just on it. He is the front-runner to take it home.

The Arrival Nobody Saw Coming

When Leonard Moore came to Notre Dame, the recruiting spotlight was pointed elsewhere. He did not arrive as the kind of prospect that generates national recruiting coverage or sends fan bases into celebration mode at the moment of commitment. He was not a household name in the recruiting world. He was a Texas native with talent that hadn't yet been fully discovered, quantified or celebrated by the recruiting services that shape early national narratives.

What he was, to those who watched him closely enough, was a cornerback with the physical tools, the competitive instincts and the natural feel for the position that you simply cannot manufacture through coaching alone. The 6-2, 195-pound frame with the length and athleticism to match up with elite wide receivers at the college level. The feet. The instincts. The way he processed routes before they fully developed, the way he competed on the ball and the way he made the position look natural in a manner that only truly gifted players ever do.

Notre Dame saw it. They offered. Moore came to South Bend without the fanfare — and then the work began.

A Star Takes Shape

The first signs that something special was developing came early in Moore's freshman season. Those who watched closely enough saw a cornerback whose instincts were ahead of his experience, whose physical tools were already operating at a level that made experienced offensive players uncomfortable and whose competitive drive was evident on every snap regardless of the score, the opponent or the moment.

But it was his 2025 season that turned what insiders quietly believed into something the entire country could no longer ignore. Moore started 10 games and delivered a performance so comprehensive, so statistically dominant and so consistently elite that the sport's most respected evaluators were left searching for superlatives.

He led Notre Dame with five interceptions — tied for sixth most in the entire country. He added 31 tackles, seven pass breakups and a forced fumble while missing only six tackles all season — a number that reflects the complete cornerback he had become, not just the ball hawk the highlights suggested. He allowed only three receiving touchdowns across the entire season. And he did it all while being one of the most scouted, game-planned-against cornerbacks in college football — a player that every offensive coordinator in the country was specifically scheming to avoid.

The signature moments punctuated the statistical dominance. A 46-yard pick-six against Syracuse that changed the momentum of the game and announced Moore's big-play capability to a national audience. A two-interception performance against Boise State that earned him both the Walter Camp FBS Defensive Player of the Week and Jim Thorpe Award Defensive Back of the Week honors simultaneously — two of the sport's most prestigious weekly recognitions landing in the same hands on the same weekend.

Notre Dame finished the season ranked No. 1 in the country in total interceptions with 21. Moore, the cornerback who arrived without a headline, hauled in five of them.

The Numbers That Turned Heads Nationally

When the season ended and the evaluation process began in earnest, the numbers that emerged from Moore's 2025 campaign were not the kind that generate polite acknowledgment. They were the kind that stop conversations.

PFF ranked Moore first among all starting Power Four cornerbacks in coverage grade at 91.4 and first in overall defensive grade at 90.9 — the top marks at the position across the entire landscape of major college football. Those grades reflect not one great game or one great stretch of games but a full season of elite performance sustained against the best competition the sport offers.

The number that perhaps best captures what Moore had become by the end of 2025 is the target rate — opponents threw at him on only 11.5 percent of his coverage snaps. Offensive coordinators and quarterbacks made a collective, conscious decision across the entire season to route their passing games away from Leonard Moore's side of the field. That is the ultimate testament to a cornerback's dominance. You can only measure a player's full impact when you account for the plays that never happened because of him — and Moore's 11.5 percent target rate tells you the plays that never happened numbered in the dozens.

The season earned him unanimous All-American honors — the kind of recognition that requires every major selector to arrive at the same conclusion independently. For a player who arrived at Notre Dame without the recruiting world's attention, unanimous All-American status represents one of the most complete turnarounds in modern college football recruiting history. He went from under the radar to unanimously the best in the country. The arc of that journey is remarkable.

The Jim Thorpe Watch List — And Why Moore Is the Front-Runner

The Jim Thorpe Award watch list announcement confirmed what the preseason evaluations had been building toward all offseason. Leonard Moore belongs in the conversation for the most prestigious individual honor a defensive back can win in college football — and he doesn't just belong in that conversation. He leads it.

Moore was a Thorpe Award finalist after his 2025 campaign, becoming the first Notre Dame cornerback to reach that stage since Bobby Taylor in 1993. No Fighting Irish cornerback has ever won the award. The history of that gap — more than three decades without a Notre Dame corner reaching the Thorpe podium — makes Moore's opportunity in 2026 feel genuinely significant, not just for his personal legacy but for the program's.

ESPN's Heather Dinich named Moore the lead candidate for the award in the network's Way-Too-Early Top 25 rankings, pointing to his unanimous All-American honors, his nation-leading PFF coverage grade and the five interceptions that defined his 2025 campaign. Beyond the Thorpe, Moore carries legitimate front-runner status for the Bronko Nagurski Trophy — the defensive equivalent of the Heisman Trophy — and the Chuck Bednarik Award, which recognizes college football's top defensive player regardless of position.

Three of the sport's most significant individual defensive awards. One player's name near the top of every list. The player who arrived at Notre Dame without a recruiting headline is now the player that every preseason award conversation builds around.

Former Notre Dame safety Xavier Watts brought the Nagurski Trophy home to South Bend after his dominant 2023 season. Moore now has the opportunity to make it back-to-back Nagurski winners from Notre Dame — a back-to-back run that would say something profound about what Marcus Freeman's program has built on the defensive side of the ball.

What Back-to-Back No. 1 Rankings Actually Mean

PFF has ranked Moore the No. 1 returning cornerback in the country heading into 2026 — the second consecutive season they have done so. Every major outlet including CBS Sports, Athlon Sports, Sporting News, FOX Sports and ESPN has echoed that assessment, identifying Moore as one of Notre Dame's most important returning players and one of the premier defensive players in the sport.

Back-to-back No. 1 cornerback rankings from PFF are not handed out carelessly. They reflect a sustained standard of excellence that separates elite players from one-year wonders — the ability to perform at the highest level not just when the element of surprise is working in your favor but when every opposing offense has had a full offseason to study your tendencies, design routes against your technique and find whatever exploitable weakness might exist in your game.

Moore held that No. 1 ranking in 2025 when opponents came after him with a full scouting report. He held it when teams specifically designed plays to attack him. He held it when the margin for error shrinks because every opposing coordinator knows exactly where you line up and how you play. And when the offseason evaluations were complete, PFF gave him the No. 1 ranking again — because nothing they saw in a full season of trying to find a weakness changed their fundamental assessment of what Leonard Moore is.

A Defense Made Better By His Presence

Moore's individual excellence cannot be separated from what it has meant for Notre Dame's defense as a collective unit. When a cornerback locks down his side of the field with the consistency that Moore demonstrated throughout 2025, the structural benefits ripple across the entire defensive system.

Safeties can rotate toward the opposite side with greater confidence. Linebackers can play downhill more aggressively knowing the deep outside is protected by a cornerback who rarely needs help. Pass rushers get critical fractions of a second longer to reach the quarterback because the corner on Moore's side has already eliminated his receiver as a viable option. Notre Dame's leap to No. 1 in the country in interceptions with 21 total picks was not independent of what their best cornerback was doing every single week. It was deeply connected to it.

A defense takes on the identity of its best player. In 2025, Notre Dame's defense took on the identity of a unit that simply did not give up big plays in the passing game — and Leonard Moore was the primary reason why.

The Final Chapter in South Bend

As Moore prepares for what could be his third and likely final season with the Fighting Irish before the NFL comes calling, the shape of his Notre Dame legacy is already remarkable. A player who arrived without recruiting fanfare has become a unanimous All-American, a two-time PFF No. 1 ranked returning cornerback, a Thorpe Award finalist and the preseason front-runner for every major individual defensive award in college football.

The journey from unheralded arrival to the top of every preseason board is the kind of story that programs build cultures around — proof that development, coaching and competitive drive can take a player without a five-star label and turn him into something the entire country agrees is the best at his position.

But Moore isn't finished writing that story. He has one more season in blue and gold, one more opportunity to add to a legacy that already exceeds anything the recruiting services predicted when he arrived in South Bend, and one very specific piece of history within reach.

No Notre Dame cornerback has ever won the Jim Thorpe Award. Leonard Moore arrived at Notre Dame without anyone predicting he would be the one to change that.

At this point, nobody would be surprised if he does exactly that.

The quietest arrival. The loudest statement. The best cornerback in America — and he has one more season to make history in South Bend.

Notre Dame Built an Instant Connection With Elite Tackle Olu Olubobola and Won Big Recruiting battle

Some recruiting victories are built over years of relationship-building, endless in-home visits and a slow, methodical courtship that eventually tips in one program's favor. And then there are moments like this one — where Notre Dame identified one of the most athletically gifted offensive tackle prospects in the entire country, extended an offer, built a genuine and deep connection in a matter of weeks and walked away with a commitment that programs like Ohio State, Texas, LSU, Michigan and Florida State were pursuing for far longer.

Jersey City, N.J./St. Peter's Prep standout Oluwasemilore Olubobola has committed to Notre Dame, choosing the Fighting Irish over Miami and Texas A&M — and the story of how this recruitment unfolded is as impressive as the prospect himself. Notre Dame didn't just land a five-star offensive tackle. They did it faster, more decisively and more convincingly than anyone thought possible when the offer was first extended in late March.

This is what elite program building looks like at its very best.

Six Weeks, One Visit, One Decision

The numbers that frame this recruitment are almost hard to believe when you lay them out in sequence. Notre Dame didn't offer Olubobola until March 19th — at which point programs like Ohio State, Texas, LSU, Oregon, Florida, Michigan, Florida State, Penn State, Tennessee, Auburn and dozens of other elite programs had already been recruiting him for months. The Irish entered the race behind nearly everyone.

From that March offer, Notre Dame had exactly one opportunity to get in front of Olubobola in person — a visit for the Blue-Gold Game on April 25th. One visit. Not a home visit followed by an official visit followed by multiple campus trips over the course of a year. One single opportunity to show Olubobola what Notre Dame's offensive line program looks like up close, what the campus feels like on a football weekend and what Joe Rudolph's development pipeline has produced for the elite tackle prospects who came before him.

Notre Dame made that one visit count in a way that changed everything. Coming out of the Blue-Gold weekend, the Irish still appeared to have ground to make up. But something had clearly shifted inside the relationship — something genuine and real that the Notre Dame staff recognized and immediately accelerated. By early May, Notre Dame had gone from late entry to the clear frontrunner. Shortly after, Olubobola made it official.

Six weeks from offer to commitment. One campus visit. A decision that beat out programs that had been recruiting him for a year or more.

That is not a coincidence. That is connection.

What Notre Dame Did Right — Building Real Relationship at Warp Speed

The most important question surrounding this commitment isn't what Olubobola brings to Notre Dame — it's how Notre Dame built a bond strong enough in six weeks to beat programs with far longer head starts.

The answer lies in what the Irish staff prioritized from the moment the offer went out. Notre Dame didn't just sell Olubobola on rankings, facilities or conference affiliations. They sold him on something more personal and more powerful — a genuine belief in who he is as a player, a student and a person, communicated with an authenticity and urgency that prospects at this level immediately recognize as real.

Joe Rudolph and the Notre Dame staff made Olubobola feel like he wasn't just a recruiting target — he was exactly who Notre Dame needed, specifically and uniquely, in this class. That distinction matters enormously to elite prospects who have every program in America telling them how great they are. When a coach can articulate precisely why you fit, what you will become under their development system and what your specific role in the program's future looks like, it cuts through the noise in ways that months of generic recruiting communication never can.

The Blue-Gold Game visit did the rest. There is simply no substitute for standing on Notre Dame's campus, feeling the weight of the tradition, watching the program operate at close range and imagining yourself inside it. Olubobola took that visit and came away with something that six weeks of phone calls and text messages couldn't fully deliver — a visceral, personal understanding of what Notre Dame means. That understanding accelerated everything.

The Athletic Profile That Made Every Program in America Take Notice

To fully appreciate the magnitude of what Notre Dame has secured, you have to understand exactly what kind of athlete Oluwasemilore Olubobola is — because his physical and athletic profile is the kind that offensive line coaches spend entire careers searching for and rarely find at this stage of development.

Start with the frame. At 6-6 and 295 pounds, Olubobola is already built like a finished college offensive tackle before he has taken a single college snap. That size and weight at his age, combined with the room his frame still has to develop, gives Notre Dame's strength and conditioning staff an extraordinary foundation to work with. But size alone is common enough among highly recruited offensive tackle prospects. What makes Olubobola genuinely special — what makes him a top-20 national prospect and the No. 1 player in the state of New Jersey — is what that 6-6, 295-pound body can actually do.

Olubobola moves with an athletic fluidity that has no business existing in a player his size. His feet are nimble and quick, processing lateral movement with an ease and natural rhythm that you typically find in skill position players, not massive offensive tackles. That footwork is not the product of years of technique work — it is native athleticism, the kind that shows up on film immediately and makes experienced evaluators lean forward in their chairs. Light feet at 295 pounds is a gift. Olubobola has it in abundance.

His length is equally elite, and what separates Olubobola from other long-armed tackle prospects is that he already knows how to use it as an active weapon. He strikes pass rushers before they can get into his frame, extending with timing and coordination that creates a natural barrier most defenders at the high school level simply cannot overcome. That early hand usage, combined with elite length and nimble footwork, gives Notre Dame a left tackle prospect who already has the foundational athletic tools to compete at the highest level of college football.

In the run game, Olubobola's explosiveness off the line is immediately evident. He doesn't ease into contact — he attacks it, driving his legs through the point of contact with powerful lower body mechanics and finishing blocks with the kind of physicality that moves defenders off the ball. His burst off the snap combined with his power through contact makes him a legitimate force in the ground game right now, with a ceiling that has barely been touched.

His change of direction skills round out an athletic package that is genuinely rare at his position. Olubobola doesn't lumber from one assignment to the next — he redirects, adjusts and moves in space with a smoothness that tells you his athleticism extends well beyond the straight-line power game. In pass protection, that lateral agility is everything when an edge rusher tries to counter inside or set up a speed-to-power conversion. Olubobola already has the natural movement skills to handle both.

The technical refinements — particularly in the finer points of pass protection hand placement and anchor depth — will come with Rudolph's coaching. But here is the essential truth about developing elite offensive tackles: you can coach technique, you can refine hand usage, you can install protection schemes. You cannot manufacture the athletic foundation that Olubobola already has. That foundation is what makes everything else teachable — and what makes his ceiling as a college offensive tackle genuinely limitless.

Five Years Running — A Standard That Doesn't Slip

Olubobola's commitment extends Notre Dame's remarkable streak of landing a five-star offensive tackle in five consecutive recruiting classes — a run of elite tackle recruiting that stands as one of the most impressive position-specific streaks in college football.

That streak doesn't happen by accident, and it doesn't happen because Notre Dame is simply throwing more resources at offensive tackle recruiting than everyone else. It happens because Joe Rudolph has built a reputation, a development track record and a relationship style that elite offensive tackle prospects trust — and because Notre Dame as an institution offers something that no purely football-based pitch can replicate. The combination of elite football development, genuine academic prestige and a program culture built on brotherhood creates a package that keeps landing at the top of the list when elite offensive tackle prospects make their final decisions.

Olubobola becomes the latest in that line — and if the development trajectory of the five-star tackles before him is any indication, he will not be the last.

A 2027 Offensive Line Room Built for Dominance

With Olubobola committed, Notre Dame's 2027 offensive line class now has three pieces that fit together with genuine intentionality. Olubobola anchors the left side with elite athleticism and a top-20 national profile. Pennsylvania standout James Halter brings physical toughness and right tackle upside from Pittsburgh Central Catholic. Wisconsin lineman Richie Flanigan projects inside with the size and temperament to develop into a power interior blocker.

Three different players. Three different profiles. Three different roles. One cohesive vision from Joe Rudolph about what this offensive line room needs — and the recruiting execution to go get it in a single class.

The New Jersey thread adds another dimension worth celebrating. With defensive end Aidan O'Neil already committed, Notre Dame now holds commitments from both the No. 1 and No. 3 players in the state of New Jersey in the 2027 class. Locking up the top talent from one of the most talent-rich states in the country on both sides of the ball reflects a regional recruiting dominance that has real long-term implications for the program.

Olubobola becomes the 15th overall commitment in Notre Dame's 2027 class, joining a group that already features quarterback Champ Monds, running backs Lathan Whisenton and Isaiah Rogers, wide receiver Jackson Coleman, tight end Titus Hawk, defensive end Aidan O'Neil, linebacker Amarri Irvin, cornerbacks Xavier Hasan and Ace Alston, safety Zayden Gamble, nickel John Gay III and long snapper Sean Kraft.

The Bottom Line

Notre Dame identified one of the most athletically gifted offensive tackle prospects in the 2027 class late, moved with precision and purpose, built a genuine connection in a matter of weeks and walked away with a commitment over programs that had been recruiting Oluwasemilore Olubobola for far longer.

The athletic package Olubobola brings to South Bend — the elite length, the nimble feet, the explosive power, the natural change of direction at 295 pounds — is exactly the kind of foundation that Joe Rudolph's development system turns into NFL-caliber offensive tackles. Notre Dame has done it five years in a row now.

The connection was instant. The talent is elite. The fit is perfect.

And once again, Notre Dame found a way to win.

usa today ranks notre dame 2nd in post spring poll

USA Today has spoken — and the verdict on Notre Dame heading into the 2026 season is about as emphatic as a preseason ranking can be. Analysts Erick Schmidt and Paul Myerberg have tabbed the Fighting Irish as the No. 2 overall team in the country in their Post-Spring Top 25, trailing only Ohio State and ranking ahead of Texas, Georgia and Indiana in a list that reflects a program operating at the absolute peak of its modern era.

The ranking is not a gift or a projection built on hope. It is a recognition of something concrete — a Notre Dame roster that returns an experienced starting quarterback, a proven offensive supporting cast, a defense that kept its best players and a coaching staff with all three coordinators back for the first time in Marcus Freeman's tenure. When you stack those ingredients together and evaluate them honestly against every other program in the country, No. 2 is not a stretch. It might even be conservative.

Here is the full case for why Notre Dame belongs exactly where USA Today put them — and why 2026 could be the year everything comes together.

CJ Carr — The Heisman Front-Runner Nobody Should Be Sleeping On

Every conversation about Notre Dame's 2026 ceiling begins and ends with CJ Carr — and every conversation about the 2026 Heisman Trophy race should begin and end there too.

Carr enters his second season as Notre Dame's starting quarterback with something that no other signal caller in the country can claim in quite the same way — a full season of starting experience at Notre Dame, in a system he now owns completely, with the weapons around him upgraded and the continuity of returning coordinators giving him the most stable offensive environment of his college career. That combination of experience, continuity and talent elevation is precisely the formula that produces Heisman Trophy-caliber seasons.

In his first full season as a starter in 2025, Carr demonstrated command, poise and playmaking ability that immediately announced him as one of the premier quarterbacks in college football. He managed Notre Dame's offense with the kind of veteran intelligence that first-year starters rarely possess — reading defenses pre-snap, going through progressions efficiently and delivering the football with accuracy and timing in the most critical moments of the most critical games. The Carr-Faison connection that developed throughout 2025 became one of the most reliable quarterback-receiver partnerships in the sport, and that chemistry only deepens entering 2026 with a full offseason of concentrated work behind it.

What elevates Carr's Heisman candidacy beyond simply returning a quality starter is the trajectory. The jump from a first-year starter finding his footing to a second-year starter who knows every concept, trusts every receiver and operates from a position of complete offensive authority is one of the most dramatic developmental leaps in college football. Carr has already shown he can win games and manage a complex offense. In 2026, with the supporting cast around him upgraded on every level, the expectation is that he takes the next step — from excellent game manager to dominant offensive force — and the tools surrounding him make that leap entirely realistic.

The Heisman Trophy watch list will have many names on it when the 2026 season begins. CJ Carr should be at or near the top of every legitimate conversation about who wins it.

A Backfield Built to Replace Elite Production

The departure of Jeremiyah Love — selected No. 3 overall by the Arizona Cardinals in the NFL Draft — leaves the most significant void Notre Dame needs to fill on offense heading into 2026. Love was one of the most dynamic running backs in college football, a unanimous All-American whose production and big-play capability defined Notre Dame's ground attack for two seasons.

But the Irish are not rebuilding the backfield from scratch. They are reloading it with proven talent that has been waiting for exactly this opportunity — and the players stepping into expanded roles bring legitimate credentials of their own.

Nolan James Jr. returns as the most experienced back in Notre Dame's room, a proven contributor who has demonstrated the vision, patience and contact balance to be a productive starter at the Power Four level. His ability to operate within Notre Dame's zone-blocking scheme, find cutback lanes and move the chains in critical short-yardage situations gives the Irish a reliable foundation in the backfield that Carr can lean on in the most important moments of games.

Aneyas Williams brings a complementary dimension to the backfield that gives offensive coordinator Tim Rees genuine flexibility in how he deploys the ground game. Williams's quickness, acceleration and ability to create in space provide a contrast to James's between-the-tackles style — giving Notre Dame a two-back approach that can attack defenses horizontally as effectively as it attacks them vertically. The combination of James's power and patience with Williams's quickness and space creation gives Notre Dame's ground game the kind of range that makes it genuinely difficult to defend with a single schematic approach.

Together, James and Williams represent a backfield that does not replace Love's individual brilliance but provides Notre Dame's offense with enough combined production, versatility and proven capability to keep the ground game a legitimate threat on every snap. That is all Carr and the passing game need — a running back room that keeps defenses honest and prevents them from loading the box against Notre Dame's receivers.

A Wide Receiver Room Transformed by Experience and Elite Portal Additions

Jordan Faison returns as Notre Dame's established No. 1 wide receiver — the team's leading receiver in 2025 with 40 receptions, 640 yards and four touchdowns — and does so as a completely different player than the one who led the team statistically last season. His offseason decision to give up lacrosse and commit entirely to football signals a level of investment and focus that should translate directly into elevated production in 2026. Faison gives Carr exactly what a second-year starter needs more than anything — a proven, trusted target who knows the offense, runs precise routes and makes the right play after the catch every single time.

Jaden Greathouse returns alongside Faison after a 2025 season that saw him emerge as one of Notre Dame's most explosive playmakers in the postseason. Greathouse's combination of separation quickness, yards-after-catch ability and big-play capability gives the Irish a legitimate second receiving threat that defenses cannot bracket without leaving Faison in one-on-one coverage outside. Two proven, experienced receivers at the top of the depth chart entering the season is a luxury Notre Dame has not had in recent memory.

The addition of Mylan Graham from Ohio State via the transfer portal elevates what was already a strong receiver room into one of the most complete groups in the country. Graham arrives with Big Ten experience, proven production at an elite program and the kind of physical tools that made him a highly recruited prospect out of high school. His ability to contribute immediately in a complementary role — taking advantage of the attention that Faison and Greathouse command from opposing secondaries — gives Carr a third legitimate receiving option that stretches defenses in ways that create opportunities for everyone on the field.

The combination of Faison's established No. 1 production, Greathouse's explosive playmaking and Graham's experienced portal addition gives Notre Dame's receiver room a depth and versatility that rivals any group in college football heading into 2026.

A Defense That Returns Its Best Players — And Added Elite Talent

If the offensive case for Notre Dame's No. 2 ranking is compelling, the defensive case is even stronger — because what Marcus Freeman's defense is returning in 2026 is not simply a group of experienced players. It is a collection of proven, dominant performers at every level of the field, supplemented by transfer additions that address the few areas where reinforcement was needed.

Leonard Moore — The Best Cornerback in America

The foundation of Notre Dame's defensive identity in 2026 is a player who has already been discussed at length in every preseason publication that covers college football seriously — and for good reason. Leonard Moore is the best cornerback in the country. Full stop.

Moore returns after a 2025 season in which he ranked first among all starting Power Four cornerbacks in both coverage grade at 91.4 and overall defensive grade at 90.9 according to PFF. He led Notre Dame with five interceptions — tied for sixth most in the entire country — while adding 31 tackles, seven pass breakups and a forced fumble across 10 starts. Opposing quarterbacks targeted him on only 11.5 percent of his coverage snaps — a testament to the reputation he built as a cornerback that the entire country's offenses chose to scheme away from rather than challenge.

PFF has ranked Moore the No. 1 returning cornerback in the country for the second consecutive season. ESPN has named him the lead candidate for the Jim Thorpe Award. He is a legitimate front-runner for the Bronko Nagurski Trophy and the Chuck Bednarik Award. In a defense returning significant production across all three levels, Moore is the crown jewel — the player that every offensive coordinator game plans around specifically and still cannot consistently solve.

Drayk Bowen — The Defensive Engine

While Moore commands the attention of opposing passing games on the outside, Drayk Bowen commands the interior of Notre Dame's defense with the kind of instinctive, physical presence that makes the entire system function at its highest level. Bowen is one of the most complete linebackers in college football — a player who processes information quickly, fills gaps with authority, covers enough ground to be a factor in pass defense and brings a physicality to the run game that sets the tone for how Notre Dame's defense operates on any given Saturday.

His return for 2026 gives Notre Dame's linebacker corps a proven leader and production anchor that younger players in the group can develop around. Bowen's ability to quarterback the defense from the second level — making pre-snap adjustments, communicating coverage calls and reacting to offensive formation changes with veteran intelligence — is as valuable as his individual statistical contribution and perhaps more so in a defense that returns significant personnel but needs someone to tie all the pieces together.

Adon Shuler — A Safety Making His Move

Adon Shuler enters 2026 as one of the most intriguing players on Notre Dame's entire roster — a safety whose athletic profile and instinctive play have been building toward a breakout season that the 2026 campaign is set up to deliver. Shuler's combination of range, closing speed and ball-hawking instincts in the deep middle of the field gives Notre Dame's secondary a versatile, playmaking presence that complements Moore's dominance on the outside in a way that makes the entire pass defense more difficult to attack from any angle.

His ability to rotate into coverage, support the run from the second level and create turnovers in the deep part of the field gives Notre Dame's defensive staff the flexibility to disguise coverage looks and present offenses with pre-snap pictures that become something entirely different after the snap. That kind of safety versatility is invaluable in a modern college football landscape where offenses are increasingly sophisticated in their ability to identify and attack predictable coverage structures.

Boubacar Traore — Pressuring the Quarterback

Boubacar Traore returns as one of Notre Dame's most important pass rush weapons — a player whose combination of athleticism, first-step quickness and relentless motor makes him a consistent threat to disrupt opposing quarterbacks on every passing down. In a 2026 defensive front that has added significant reinforcement through the transfer portal, Traore's returning production and established role give the Irish a proven disruptive presence that new additions can build around rather than having to establish from scratch.

His ability to win one-on-one matchups against offensive tackles, create pressure from multiple alignments and finish plays in the backfield gives Notre Dame's defensive line a dynamic, production-proven element that elevates the entire group's ceiling. Opposing offensive coordinators cannot simply account for the new additions on Notre Dame's defensive front without also accounting for Traore — and that collective burden on an offensive line makes everyone on the Irish front more dangerous.

Bryce Young and the Transfer Portal Additions Transform the Front Seven

Notre Dame's returning defensive core is impressive enough on its own. Add the transfer portal additions and the front seven becomes one of the most formidable groups in the country.

Bryce Young arrives as the leader of a defensive line that also added Francis Brewu from Pittsburgh and Keon Keeley from Alabama — two transfers whose production and credentials at elite programs give Notre Dame's defensive front an immediate infusion of experienced, proven talent that addresses the depth and pass rush concerns that any program faces when losing contributors to graduation or the NFL.

Brewu brings interior disruption capability from a Pittsburgh program that regularly produces NFL-caliber defensive linemen. Keeley arrives from Alabama with the pedigree and physical tools that made him one of the most coveted defensive line recruits in his class — and Notre Dame gets the benefit of Alabama's development infrastructure having already invested significant time and resources into maximizing his potential.

Together with Traore and the returning pieces up front, Young, Brewu and Keeley give Notre Dame a defensive line rotation that can go deep into games without losing effectiveness — matching the physical demands of a Power Four schedule snap for snap, series for series, against the best offensive lines the sport produces.

Christian Gray and DJ McKinney Complete an Elite Secondary

Behind Moore, Notre Dame's secondary is anchored by Christian Gray — a versatile, proven defender whose ability to play multiple positions in the back end gives defensive coordinator Al Golden the flexibility to present different looks without sacrificing production at any individual spot.

The addition of DJ McKinney from Colorado via the transfer portal completes what USA Today identified as potentially the biggest strength on Notre Dame's entire roster. McKinney arrives with starting experience, proven production against Power Four competition and the physical and athletic profile to step in immediately and contribute at a high level alongside Moore and Gray. A secondary that starts Moore, Gray and McKinney — with Shuler patrolling the deep middle — is as complete and as dangerous a group of defensive backs as any program in the country can put on the field in 2026.

The Continuity Factor — Why This Year Is Different

Every element of Notre Dame's 2026 roster case is amplified by something that has never existed before in Marcus Freeman's tenure — complete continuity at the coordinator level. All three coordinators return for the first time under Freeman, bringing with them the accumulated institutional knowledge, player relationships and schematic sophistication that only develops when a coaching staff stays together long enough to truly master their system.

Carr does not have to learn a new offensive system. Moore does not have to rebuild trust with a new defensive coordinator. The entire roster — from the most experienced starters to the youngest contributors — enters 2026 operating within a framework they already know, already trust and already know how to maximize. That continuity is worth several wins over the course of a season, and in a college football landscape where coordinator turnover is constant and relentless, Notre Dame's stability entering 2026 is a genuine competitive advantage.

The Bottom Line

USA Today ranked Notre Dame No. 2 in the country after spring practice — and the case for that ranking is as strong as any program in America can make. A returning Heisman-caliber quarterback in CJ Carr. A backfield reloaded with Nolan James Jr. and Aneyas Williams. A receiver room elevated by Jordan Faison's leadership, Jaden Greathouse's explosion and Mylan Graham's portal addition. A defense returning Leonard Moore, Drayk Bowen, Adon Shuler and Boubacar Traore while adding Bryce Young, Francis Brewu, Keon Keeley and DJ McKinney to an already elite group.

Stack all of it together under three returning coordinators with a head coach entering his fifth season and the program's deepest, most talented roster to date — and No. 2 in the country is not just defensible.

It might be the most honest thing USA Today has published all offseason.

2027 qb Champ Monds Commitment adds to growing Notre Dame Quarterback Legacy

Every elite program thinks about quarterback succession. The best ones solve it before it becomes a problem — identifying the right player, building the right relationship and securing the commitment before the need becomes urgent. Notre Dame has done exactly that with the commitment of Champ Monds, the 6-2, 225-pound signal caller from Vero Beach, Florida whose decision to choose the Fighting Irish over Ohio State, Florida State and Florida does more than fill a roster spot in the 2027 recruiting class.

It secures the future of the most important position on Notre Dame's football team at exactly the right moment.

CJ Carr has been everything Notre Dame hoped he would be as a starting quarterback — and if his 2026 season matches the trajectory his first year as a starter established, the NFL Draft conversation surrounding him will be impossible to ignore when the season ends. The possibility of Carr departing for the NFL after 2026 is real, it is reasonable and it is something the Notre Dame coaching staff is planning around right now. Champ Monds is the answer to that planning — a quarterback with the arm talent, accuracy, anticipation and competitive character to step into one of college football's most prestigious roles and thrive from the moment his number is called.

Notre Dame didn't just land a quarterback recruit. They secured the future of the position — and they did it with their first choice, on their first offer, through a relationship built with the kind of genuine connection that defines everything great about how Marcus Freeman's program operates.

Planning for the Future — Why the Timing of This Commitment Matters

The quarterback position at Notre Dame operates on a different timeline than most programs because of the standard the Irish hold themselves to. Notre Dame does not patch the position with portal solutions or recruit quarterbacks without genuine conviction about their long-term fit in the program. They identify the right player, invest in the relationship and commit to a vision of what that quarterback can become under elite coaching and development.

With CJ Carr entering his second and likely final season as Notre Dame's starter in 2026, the quarterback room's future beyond this season requires a clear plan. If Carr's 2026 campaign produces the kind of Heisman-caliber performance that the preseason projections suggest is coming — and every indicator points toward exactly that — the NFL Draft will come calling with the kind of urgency that is impossible to turn down. Notre Dame needs to be ready for that moment with a quarterback already in the building who has the tools, the preparation and the relationship with the coaching staff to step into the role without a transition period.

Champ Monds is that quarterback. He arrives in South Bend in 2027 with a full senior season at Vero Beach behind him, a relationship with quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli already deeply established and a physical and mental profile that projects as one of the most complete quarterback prospects to come through Notre Dame's program in recent memory. The timing of his arrival — potentially stepping in immediately after Carr's departure — is not coincidental. It is exactly the succession plan a program with Notre Dame's standards builds when it is operating at the highest level of organizational foresight.

The Arm, The Accuracy, The Anticipation — What the Film Reveals

To understand why Notre Dame made Champ Monds their first call and only quarterback target in the 2027 class, you have to watch the film — because what Monds does on a football field reveals a quarterback whose physical tools and mental processing are operating well ahead of where most high school signal callers are at the same stage of development.

The Arm

Monds is built like a quarterback. At 6-2 and 225 pounds as a high school signal caller, he carries the kind of physical foundation that college strength programs accelerate rather than create from scratch. The arm strength that comes with that frame is immediately evident on film — Monds throws with the kind of velocity and carry that allows him to fit throws into windows that smaller-armed quarterbacks simply cannot access.

His ability to drive the ball into tight coverage, zip passes over the middle against zone defenders and deliver the football on rhythm without taking velocity off the throw to compensate for questionable mechanics reflects a quarterback whose arm is already a genuine weapon rather than a tool he is still learning to fully utilize. The deep ball is equally impressive — Monds shows the ability to change arm angles, layer throws over coverage and drop the football into the back shoulder of receivers on go routes with the kind of touch and placement that separates elite passers from quarterbacks who simply throw the ball hard.

For a program that has developed quarterbacks at an elite level and understands exactly what arm profile is needed to succeed in a Power Four offense against elite college defenses, Monds's arm strength registered immediately as a priority-level trait — one that cannot be developed through coaching but can be refined and weaponized with the right instruction.

The Accuracy

The statistics that define Champ Monds's high school career are built on a foundation of exceptional accuracy — and the numbers tell a story that the film confirms on every snap.

As a true freshman at Vero Beach, Monds completed 67.5 percent of his passes while throwing 23 touchdowns against just five interceptions. Four of those five interceptions came in his first two starts — the predictable adjustment period of a freshman signal caller navigating the speed and complexity of varsity football for the first time. What happened after those first two games is the number that matters most: one interception in the next ten games. The adjustment was total, immediate and self-correcting in a way that reflects a quarterback who processes his mistakes analytically rather than emotionally and refuses to repeat them.

His sophomore season pushed the accuracy numbers to an entirely different level. In limited action before an injury ended his year prematurely, Monds completed 81.4 percent of his passes — a completion percentage that reflects not just accurate throwing but the kind of precise, timing-based delivery that comes from a quarterback who trusts his reads, trusts his receivers and delivers the football on schedule rather than waiting for routes to fully develop before committing to the throw.

That 81.4 percent completion rate is particularly meaningful because it was produced against defenses that were game-planning specifically to stop Monds and a Vero Beach offense that was averaging 51.3 points per game. Defenders knew what was coming. They prepared specifically for Monds. And he completed more than eight of every ten passes he attempted anyway. That is not a system completion percentage inflated by scheme — that is a quarterback whose accuracy is genuine, repeatable and built on sound mechanical foundations.

The Anticipation

The most difficult quarterback trait to evaluate on film — and the one that most directly predicts success at the college and professional levels — is anticipation. The ability to process defensive coverage pre-snap, identify where the ball needs to go before the snap, read post-snap rotations and deliver the football to the right place at the right time before the window closes is what separates quarterbacks who can execute in high school from quarterbacks who can execute at Notre Dame, in primetime, against the best defenses college football produces.

Monds shows genuine anticipation on film in a way that is rare for a high school quarterback his age. He does not hold the ball and wait for receivers to come open — he anticipates the opening, begins his throwing motion before the receiver has fully separated and delivers the football into space rather than to a stationary target. That anticipatory release is the mechanical expression of pre-snap read quality — and Monds demonstrates it consistently enough that it reflects an ingrained processing habit rather than an occasional lucky read.

His dual-threat ability amplifies the anticipation element by forcing defenses into the kinds of structural compromises — pulling linebackers off coverage assignments, holding safeties in run-fit responsibility — that create the openings his anticipation allows him to exploit immediately and efficiently. As a freshman, Monds rushed for 502 yards and nine touchdowns — not as a scrambler looking for broken plays but as a designed threat who added a genuine rushing dimension to the Vero Beach offense that defenses had to account for on every snap.

The combination of arm strength, accuracy and anticipation in a 6-2, 225-pound frame is the profile that NFL scouts and elite college coaches identify as the foundation of a starting quarterback at the highest levels of the sport. Notre Dame identified it in Champ Monds from the moment the evaluation began — and everything that followed in this recruitment reflects just how highly they valued what they saw.

Gino Guidugli and the Relationship That Won the Room

The most important element of any quarterback recruitment — more important than facilities, depth charts or conference affiliations — is the relationship between the prospect and the quarterbacks coach who will be responsible for his development. Elite quarterbacks choose the coach they trust most to make them better, and the program that coach represents becomes the destination regardless of what anyone else in the recruitment offers.

In Notre Dame's case, that coach is Gino Guidugli — and the relationship he built with Champ Monds from the moment Notre Dame entered this recruitment is the foundation upon which everything else was constructed.

Guidugli is a quarterback developer whose track record and communication style resonates with the kind of intelligent, process-driven signal caller that Monds's film suggests he is. From the first conversation between the two, a genuine connection developed — not the transactional kind that recruiting generates between programs and prospects who are simply going through the motions of a recruitment, but the authentic kind where a young quarterback recognizes a coach who genuinely understands the position, communicates development with clarity and specificity and makes a compelling case for what the prospect can become under his instruction.

Notre Dame made Monds their first offer at the quarterback position in the 2027 class — and Guidugli was central to that decision. His evaluation of Monds's film aligned with the staff's conviction that this was the right quarterback for this class, and his ability to build a relationship quickly once the offer was extended accelerated a recruitment that might otherwise have taken months longer to resolve.

The campus visits that followed were equally important. Monds made the trip to South Bend and experienced Notre Dame's campus, program and culture up close — and each visit deepened both the relationship with Guidugli and the conviction that Notre Dame was the right place for his development. There is something that happens when a quarterback prospect walks into Notre Dame's quarterback room, sits across from the coaching staff and begins to visualize himself developing within that system. For Monds, that vision became compelling enough to choose the Irish over Ohio State, Florida State and Florida — programs with enormous resources and legitimate development track records of their own.

The relationship Guidugli built with Monds is not just the reason Notre Dame won this recruitment. It is the foundation for everything that Monds's Notre Dame career will become — the coaching relationship through which his arm strength gets refined, his anticipation gets developed and his understanding of the game gets elevated to the level required to succeed as a starting quarterback at Notre Dame.

From Recruit to Recruiter — Monds's Role in Building the 2027 Class

The moment a quarterback of Champ Monds's caliber commits to a recruiting class, his role in that class changes immediately and fundamentally. He stops being a target and starts being a weapon — the most powerful recruiting tool a coaching staff can deploy is a committed quarterback who is genuinely excited about his program and genuinely invested in bringing the best possible teammates to join him.

For Notre Dame's 2027 class, Monds's commitment creates a dynamic that simply did not exist before he made his decision. Every offensive skill player on Notre Dame's 2027 recruiting board — every wide receiver, tight end and running back the Irish are pursuing — now has the opportunity to build a relationship with the quarterback they will be playing alongside. That relationship is one of the most powerful closing tools in recruiting because it transforms an abstract commitment decision into something concrete and personal. A wide receiver who commits to Notre Dame in the 2027 class is not just choosing a program — he is choosing to play for Champ Monds, to build chemistry with Champ Monds and to develop the kind of quarterback-receiver partnership that defines great offenses.

Monds understands this dynamic and embraces it. His genuine excitement about Notre Dame, his relationship with the coaching staff and his personal investment in the success of the 2027 class make him an organic and authentic recruiter for the program in a way that cannot be manufactured or coached. When Monds reaches out to a wide receiver on Notre Dame's board, that conversation carries a weight and authenticity that no assistant coach's recruiting call can fully replicate.

The wide receivers, tight ends and skill players on Notre Dame's 2027 recruiting board are about to discover that Champ Monds is not just a committed quarterback. He is one of the most compelling reasons to choose Notre Dame — a signal caller with elite physical tools, a championship pedigree from Florida's most competitive high school football environment and a genuine, personal investment in assembling the best possible class around him.

For a Notre Dame 2027 class that already features running backs Lathan Whisenton and Isaiah Rogers, wide receiver Jackson Coleman, offensive linemen James Halter and Richie Flanigan, defensive end Aidan O'Neil, linebacker Amarri Irvin, cornerbacks Xavier Hasan and Ace Alston, safety Zayden Gamble, nickel John Gay III and long snapper Sean Kraft — Monds's commitment as the 12th overall pledge gives the class its most important piece and its most powerful recruiting voice going forward.

The Bottom Line

Champ Monds committed to Notre Dame as the staff's first choice, first offer and only quarterback target in the 2027 class — and what he brings to South Bend goes far beyond a scholarship decision.

He brings a strong arm that can access every area of the field. He brings accuracy that produced a 67.5 percent completion rate as a true freshman and 81.4 percent in limited sophomore action. He brings anticipation and football intelligence that reflect a quarterback processing the game at a level well beyond his years. He brings a relationship with Gino Guidugli built on genuine trust and a shared vision of what his development at Notre Dame can become.

And he brings the timing that Notre Dame needed most — arriving in South Bend in 2027 at precisely the moment the program may need a new face of the quarterback position, ready to step in with the foundation already built and the future already bright.

CJ Carr is building toward something special in 2026. Champ Monds is building toward something special in South Bend for years beyond that.

Notre Dame's quarterback future is in excellent hands. Both of them.

joe rudolph may have his best 5-man combo on the offensive line

Joe Rudolph has done an amazing job recruiting size, length and talent to the Notre Dame offensive line room. His efforts may lead to the Joe Moore Award returning to South Bend next winter, if things go as planned. Entering spring practice, the first unit has been freshman left tackle Will Black, junior left guard Anthoine Knapp, junior center Joe Otting, junior right guard Sullivan Absher and Sophomore right tackle Guerby Lambert. Senior center Ashton Craig is expected to make a full recovery from the leg injury that ended his 2025 season prematurely, and junior guard Charles Jagusah is still dealing with complications from surgery to remedy his injured left arm due to a ATV accident last summer. Despite missing two highly talented linemen this spring, the early returns from coaches and players signal great things ahead for the group.

Rudolph spoke to the media on Wednesday and began with sharing how pleased he’s been with the right side of the first unit, which features Guerby Lambert being moved from right guard to right tackle, and Sullivan Absher replacing him at the right guard spot.

“Those two guys really kind of called each other out about guys that they are confident in, guys that they really look to for leadership, guys that they really trust. and that's always a unique situation when you can kind of create that or build that into your five-line. And then it would have been easy to leave Knapp outside and Guerby inside. What was just the basis of moving them around, too? Guerby has a real comfort on the right side of the line, which is cool.”

Knapp has always been a devastating run blocker and will serve as a more than comparable replacement for former left guard standout Billy Schrauth, who is preparing to be selected in the upcoming NFL Draft. Freshman Will Black came to South Bend with a lot of buzz as a 5-Star in the 2025 class, and head coach Marcus Freeman said there some early growing pains that he had to endure and overcome to begin reaching his full potential. He’s a natural tackle with great length and athleticism that should benefit from being next to a veteran like Knapp, who was ranked as top returning offensive tackle in college football before being moved inside,

With all of the movement this spring, Rudolph has been impressed with the performance of the Black-Knapp combo on the left side and the performance of the line as a whole.

“Knapper, we felt, has done a great job playing left. But we thought to get each guy in maybe the spot that would allow them to shine the most would be the chance to move Knapp in and create a good competition at the left, which Will's done a great job of, but there's still good competition there. And really what you don't know is how the guys will embrace it. And there's a lot of differences, right? It's like, I've been really good here, and now you want me to move here. And Anthony's just embraced it, and he wants to know the intricacies of the position and the differences. And that's really kind of created it. And then what you can't anticipate is how well they work together, the pre-snap communication, how they work in the meeting room, how they talk, their plan, their trust for one another. So I've been impressed by it.”

Another bright spot this spring has been the performance of freshman guard Matty Augustine, who can play both guard and tackle for coach Rudolph. The Irish have 4-5 experienced linemen that have the flexibility to play multiple positions and that should allow a group that has suffered from injuries over the last three seasons to maintain a dominant level of play throughout the 2026 season.

Charlie Partridge looking to turn up the pressure

The impact of new defensive line coach Charlie Partridge was on display as several Irish defensive linemen met with the assembled media after their seventh practice. Before they walked to the podium, their new leader shared his thoughts on how he’s re-shaping how the front four has been challenged to focus on consistently pass rushing collectively. .

Last season, the Irish sacked opposing quarterbacks 43 times and hurried them 210 times, but they were key moments in games where they allowed open lanes for players like Texas A&M quarterback Marcel Reed to scramble for first downs. Partridge has set the tone for his position room by setting a focus for each day.

“We're leaning in on pass rush lanes. I know Coach Freeman talked about that the other day with the media group.”

“That's something we've put a big emphasis on while still pass rushing aggressively, pass rushing together as a unit. Because so many times, if you don't pay attention to that, you may have somebody have a great rush and win on one side, but if you're not in good lanes on the other, it was for naught. So we put a big focus on that, and today's focus, like I said, was aggressively attacking our keys in the run.”

As he learns his athletes, Partridge has been able to lean on the familiarity he has with defensive coordinator Chris Ash to help with his transition. The relationship is built on mutual respect with an understanding that disagreement is not about personal feelings. They haven’t worked together since 2013, when they were both on the Arkansas Razorback staff. However, they’ve always been in contact with one another, including last season when he was a defensive line coach in the NFL for the Indianapolis Colts.

“It's kind of what I said when I got here, guys. I mean, me and Chris, our background goes so much. We've been through so much together in the football world that we can argue or discuss things that maybe we don't see the same way, and there's no feelings. You don't have to worry about hurting each other's feelings. Even if we get to a point where we're maybe arguing about something, it's all about getting together and getting on the same page, and then it's very, very healthy. He hasn't let me down one bit.”

“It's been a while since we've worked together. Last time we were together was Arkansas in 2013. Yeah, it was 2013, so it's been a while, but we talk all the time, and he's exactly what I knew he would be.”

With returning edge rushers like Boubacar Traore and Bryce Young, and the additions of defensive tackle transfers Francis Brewu and Tionne Gray. the Fighting Irish are working hard during spring practices to have four pass rushing threats that should lead to a more disciplined and consistent rush for opposing offenses. The linebacking corp added 13.5 sacks last season, but that number could decrease if the plans being laid by Partridge and his players continue to manifest through the rest of spring and fall camps into the regular season.

returning qb and coordinators give marcus freeman a better feeling this spring

For the first time since 2020, Notre Dame will have a returning starter under center. as quarterback CJ Carr returns to become the face of the Irish offense heading into a very important spring practice schedule. Carr had an impressive start to his 2025 season, but leveled off towards the end of the season. Despite disappointing late season performances, he threw for 2,741 yards and completed over 66 percent of his passes with 24 touchdowns, and seven interception. Head coach Marcus Freeman recently sat down with On3's JD Pickell and talked about his confidence in what he’s seen from his second year signal-caller.

"It's exciting," Freeman stated. "It's my first time having a returning starting quarterback along with all three coordinators returning as well. There's a level of comfort knowing who they are as people, knowing that they know the schemes, knowing who CJ Carr is and the work ethic that he puts in as well as the work our coaches put in. There's a level of confidence we have but we still have to continue to do the work."

According to FanDuel, Carr is currently the favorite to win the Heisman and widely considered one of the best returning quarterbacks according to several outlets. Multiple outlets project Carr to be the number one quarterback in college football with a chance of being a top 10 pick in the 2027 NFL Draft. The off-season buzz matches the buzz generated by his arrival during bowl practices for the 2023 Tony The Tiger Sun Bowl. Since then, the sound coming from his talent and preparation have been unavoidable.

"He's prepared," Freeman answered when asked about Carr. "From the moment he stepped on campus, he's prepared to be the starter. It's just a reflection of the way he was raised, being obviously a coach's kid and a coach's grandson. He prepares tremendously. That's the one thing you appreciate about CJ Carr is there is no finish line for him and that's what I'm excited for."

Now, the pressure ratchets up for Carr and offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock, who will also have the same conductor for his offense returning for the first time since returning prior to the 2024 season. Both Freeman and Denbrock have high expectations for their quarterback, and his maturity is greatly needed as the offense loses almost 73 percent of it’s production with players like Jeremiyah Love, Jadarian Price, Eli Raridon, and others leaving for the NFL. The passing game must take a step forward with Carr becoming the focal point of the offense.  

"The thing that you're seeing him do now is him truly let his leadership shine," Freeman explained. "He's making the guys around him better. You see him getting the wide outs, tight ends and the running backs together saying, 'Okay, we're going to throw on Saturdays at this time and you have to be there. Then they're going to watch film at this time and they have to be there. He is always looking for ways to improve." 

Defensive coordinator Chris Ash has continuity in the coaching staff with the hiring of Charlie Partridge, Aaron Henry and Brian Jean-Mary. All three coaches had existing relationships with Ash and understand how he wants things communicated to the players. That may have been difficult with the previous staff that had coached under former defensive coordinator Al Golden. Going into his second year, Ash has a better feel for what the players can do and the defense should benefit from it.”

"Every year before this, I was spending time with a certain side of the ball trying to make sure we understand what the new scheme was," Freeman stated. "You're trying to figure out how we're going to script practice to get enough reps for this quarterback competition. Every year is different, but this one's different. I don't need to go spend a whole bunch of time figuring out what we're doing on offense, defense and special teams because the coordinators are back."

Marcus Freeman has an early season hurdle to get over in the form of his team getting off to slow starts, and the continuity flowing from his quarterback and coordinators has him extremely confident about the Fighting Irish being able to fulfill his mantra for the season. “Leave No Doubt”.

brian jean-mary loves talent and experience in lb room

While at Michigan and other stops like Tennessee in his coaching career, Brian Jean-Mary has consistently developed tough minded linebacker room that were good against the run and the pass. Now, he brings that magic to South Bend to replace former linebackers coach Max Bullough who returned to Michigan State, his alma mater, to be the co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach for Pat Fitzgerald.  

He was the last hire of three new defensive assistants for head coach Marcus Freeman along with new defensive line coach Charlie Partridge and new defensive backs coach and co-defensive coordinator Aaron Henry. The linebacker room that he inherits is not short on talent or experience with five players totaling more than 100 snaps in 2025, and that’s something that has Jean-Mary excited.

"I had a little bit of an idea of what we were doing defensively and watched player wise some crossover tape," Jean-Mary explained. "I always admired from afar and now that I'm here, every new coach is going to try to dive into the film and try to learn as much as you can about the system. You have to build trust with the players and they have to get to know me the same way I have to get to know them. They've done a great job of opening themselves up and letting me pour into them. It's been great." 

The Notre Dame defense got off to a slow start last season, but managed to remain stout against the run for the second straight season, giving up 98.9 rushing yards per game (9th in the nation) and 3 yards per rush (7th in the nation). That type of production from a unit that found a better footing in Chris Ash’s defense with each game is a great foundation, and a little pressure for the veteran coach.

"It's one of the best jobs in the country," Jean-Mary stated. "It's a blessing to be in a situation where we know what the expectations are every week; we know what the expectations are at the end of the year. Some people look at that as pressure. There's only certain schools that have that type of pressure. So when the standard is to be the best, that's a challenge for us as coaches and that's what you want to be a part of. I've been at those other places where the challenge is to just have a good season. I know that's not the case here."

One of the biggest advantages that he brings to the Irish staff is the relationship he has with some of the top 2027 and 2028 recruits that began while he was at Michigan. The 2027 board suffred the loss of Ellis McGaskin once Max Bullough left for Michigan State, but connections with players like Kaden Henderson, Noah Roberts, Roman Igwebuike and Brayton Feister immediately upgraded the board for the Irish.  

cj carr ranked as top returning qb in college football

Fighting Irish starting quarterback, CJ Carr, is the betting favorite to win the Heisman trophy according to FanDuel, and was recently picked by ESPN analyst Bill Connelly as the top ranked returning quarterback in the country.

The ESPN ranking is based on "stats, trends and recent performances." That equation led to Connelly placing Carr as the nation's top quarterback, ahead of Ohio State sophomore Julian Sayin. Carr will be Marcus Freeman’s first returning starter at the position and the success of the Fighting Irish rest on what many expect to be an impressive season.

Connelly’s Take:

"He sort of looked like a redshirt freshman against Miami in Week 1 of last season, but that was about it. He fell just short of leading a comeback win against the Hurricanes, then pretty much torched all other opposition. Sure, he had a spectacular run game at his disposal -- Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price combined for 2,046 yards and 29 touchdowns (and are both gone now) -- but Notre Dame ranked first nationally in third-and-long success rate (7 or more yards to go). When Carr had to make a throw, he did so.

"Carr isn't exactly your modern dual-threat guy; he doesn't scramble much, and he's not a threat to punish defenses for turning their backs on the QB in man coverage. But he also doesn't take sacks, both because of quick decision-making and the fact that he might have the best offensive line in the country protecting him. He's accurate, he has a big arm, and by the end of 2025 he was one of the most reliable passers in the sport.

"While three of last year's four main wideouts are gone, the return of Jordan Faison, plus 2024 playoff hero Jaden Greathouse (back from an injury redshirt) will help, as will the addition of two recent blue-chippers from Ohio State (Mylan Graham, Quincy Porter). Carr should have most of what he needs, and even if the run game regresses a bit, there's no reason to think he won't continue to come through on third down." - Connelly

Carr earned second team Freshman All-American honors last season after passing for 2,741 yards and 24 touchdowns while completing just under 67-percent of his passes. He ranked second in all of college football with a 9.4 yards per attempt average and ranked fifth with a passer rating of 168.06, and his passer rating set a new Notre Dame record, shattering the mark that was previously tied by Jimmy Clausen in 2009. Carr also ranked 4th in the country with a 14.1 per completion average.

Notre dame offer ‘27 ath brennen lacey

The Fighting Irish continue to search for explosive playmakers and they recently offered 2027 6-1 187-pound ATH Brennen Lacey of Frisco (Texas) Frisco,  who posted 812 all-purpose yards and 10 touchdowns in 9 games. Lacey was more than excited to get the call from Irish running back coach Je’Juan Seider.

“It’s not even a feeling man,” Lacey told Lucky Lefty. “I’m just blessed. I’ve always dreamed about playing for Notre Dame. I’ve been talking to Coach Seider lately, but when he called and gave me the offer, I couldn’t believe it.”

Lacey is unranked right now, but has picked up offers from Notre Dame and Ohio State in the last 24 hours. He already has three spring visits lined up, but the Fighting Irish will definitely be getting his fourth.

“Yes, I’m going to be visiting them,” Lacey said. “Right now I’m visiting Oklahoma State, TCU and Western Kentucky. I’m going to finalize things this week and I can’t wait to get there.”

The Irish staff loves his big play capability and versatility as a pass-catcher. His film shows a great athlete that is just beginning to scratch the surface as a running back after starting at wide receiver as a sophomore. The Fighting Irish just produced a Heisman finalist running back (Jeremiyah Love) that was viewed as a great athlete coming out of high school and Lacey has been one of his biggest fans.

“They like my big play capability,” Lacey shared. “I’m very versatile and I feel like I’m very elusive and efficient. I watch Jeremiyah Love a lot. I study Saquon, Jeremiyah, and a few others. But, him (Jeremiyah) and Ashton Jeanty were my number ones.”

5-STAR KADEN HENDERSON SET TO VISIT NOTRE DAME

2027 5-star 6-2 215-pound linebacker Kaden Henderson of Tampa (Fla.) Jesuit visited South Bend back in November and it lived up to everything for the top ranked linebacker in the 2027 class according to 247 Sports. He always heard about the Notre Dame tradition and academics, but he was still unsure of what to expect when he arrived. He previously spoke about it with Lucky Lefty.

• “I always heard it was different. The moment I got there and stepped in the facility it made me feel like home. Everyone was really nice and welcoming. It didn’t feel like an act.

• “The atmosphere and fans were incredible. I’m from Florida, but I have to admit that watching the game in the snow was pretty cool. I love how the style of defense and how fast and aggressive the linebackers play. That’s how I play now and how I want to play in college.”

One of the best moments of his visit were the two impactful conversations he had with head coach Marcus Freeman and former linebackers coach Max Bullough. Unfortunately, Max Bullough is no longer with the Irish program, but new linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary was heavily recruiting Henderson at Michigan and had a similar relationship. During the period of transition between coaches, Marcus Freeman took the bull by the horn with Henderson’s recruitment and is one of the main reasons he has scheduled a second visit to South Bend on April 18th.

• “Coach Freeman told me that there’s no place like ND and that I’m already a perfect fit and that I’m built for Notre Dame from religious and academic aspects. The way he breaks it down, makes it clear for me to see it, and see myself there.”

Now, The Irish have a better idea of who they will competing against for the 24th best player in the country according to 247 Sports as he released his top 5 schools which included Notre Dame along with Miami, Texas A&M, Ohio State, and Alabama. He’s also locked in his official visit for June 19th.

jeremiyah love and jadarian price make all-combine team

Notre Dame standouts Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price were the best running back duo in 2025, and the pair went into the 2026 NFL Draft cycle mocked to be the first two backs selected according to most industry experts. They both lived up to the expectations of NFL scout and coaches in Indianapolis.

Love and Price both had outstanding performances, and they were recognized by NFL.com as two of the standouts. NFL.com released its All-Combine team, and the Notre Dame stars were the two backs listed on the ranking.

Love kicked things off with an elite performance in the 40-yard dash. Despite checking in at 212 pounds, Love had a blazing time, posting a 4.36 in his first run and a 4.37 time in his second run. His official 4.36 time was the second best at running back and continued to separate himself as the best back in the draft. In fact, Love's performance helped him continue to put himself in the debate as the best overall player in the draft.

The 40-yard dash was the only testing aspect of Love's performance, but he did participate in the on-field position drills. Love was also a standout there, showing explosiveness, impressive route running skills and he caught the ball extremely well. Love certainly impressed NFL teams with his performance, which comes after an elite 2025 season in which he won the Doak Walker Award, was a unanimous All-American season and rushed for 1,372 yards and 18 touchdowns.

Price also had a strong testing performance, running a 4.49 in the 40-yard dash. Love also had a 35-inch vertical jump and a 10'4" broad jump. Price's 10'4" broad jump was tied for the third best among the running backs. His 21 reps on the bench press was also impressive.

As good as his testing numbers were, Price was even better during the on-field drills. He was incredibly smooth and efficient with his footwork going through the bag drills, which are meant to replicate making cuts with the ball in his hands. Price also showed himself to be a good route runner and he caught the ball extremely well. While Love showed off his pass catching skills at Notre Dame, Price didn't get as much of a chance to do so, hauling in just 15 passes for 162 yards and three touchdowns in his career.

notre dame offers explosive 2028 wide receiver

2028 5-11 165-pound wide receiver Jeramy Laster Jr. of Hendersonville (Tenn.) Beech was recently offered by the Fighting Irish and the magnitude of the offer from a program like Notre Dame was not overlooked.

“Man it feels unreal,” Laster Jr. told IB. “Notre Dame is a really prestigious program and it feels great to be on their radar. Coach (Mike) Brown and I have been talking for weeks, so I knew they kind of liked me. But, when he told me he was offering a scholarship, i couldn’t believe it.”

As a sophomore, Laster Jr. amassed over 1500 all-purpose yards and 18 touchdowns and holds things down in the classroom as well with a 3.4 GPA. That’s why an offer from the Irish hits a little different.

“I want to great at everything,” Laster Jr. shared. “I’ve been working hard this off-season to ready for spring ball and taking some college level courses. You can’t play sports forever, and I plan to be a success in everything I do. A school like Notre Dame can definitely help.

“I definitely want to visit,” Laster Jr. continued. With spring ball coming up, it makes if difficult to find time. I haven’t picked a date yet, but I am planning on visiting.”

He holds offers from programs like Indiana, Ole Miss, Auburn, Florida State, Tennessee and Vanderbilt amongst others.